Monthly Archives: May 2015

Canada, Iran, Israel, Middle East Nuclear, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

Breaking News: OBama, Britain, and Canadian Likud Insist on a Nuclear-Armed Middle East………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, thanked the US secretary of state, John Kerry, for blocking an Egyptian-led drive on a possible Middle East nuclear arms ban at a United Nations conference, an Israeli official said on Saturday. It was a rare message of thanks from Netanyahu, who has repeatedly accused President Barack Obama of undermining Israel’s security by attempting to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. A month-long review conference on the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) ended in failure on Friday, over disagreements on the issue of a Middle East atomic weapons ban. Washington blamed the failure on Egypt, which in turn blamed the US, British and Canadian delegations………….”

So the Obama administration got together with the right-wing British government and the Likudnik Canadian petro-regime to block an attempt to ban nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

So what was all the fuss and threats and economic blockade against Iran about then? I had though they were about stemming the expansion of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Apparently not.
And why would Benyamin netanyahu thank these three amigos for blocking that? And how do you spell hypocrisy in various languages of white folks?

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Iran, Racism, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Senate, Uncategorized

Palmetto Hustler: How Lindsey Graham Bin Jingo Learned about Iranians………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Senator Lindsey Graham, the first speaker Friday morning, appearing from Washington via video, spoke of losing his parents as a teenager, working in a pool hall and having to help raise his younger sister – and how it relates to his leadership style. “Everything I learned about Iranians I learned working in the pool room,” he said. “I met a lot of liars, and I know Iranians are liars.”………….”

Pool halls and liars. He worked in a pool room and discovered that Iranians are liars, unlike many senators and others who work in pool halls. This is where Senator Lindsey Graham Bin Jingo learned that Iranian are liars (apparently there are no exceptions). This senator Graham sounds like an unlikely Paul Newman in one of my favorite old films.
Unless some of his pro-democracy kleptocratic autocrats on the Persian Gulf told him so. We all know they never lie.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Genocide, Locust, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Locust Phenomenon Strikes Yemen: Kosher and Halal Desert Delicacy………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“As a result of the fuel shortage, women experiencing complications in childbirth had been turned away, she said, and incubators in the hospital had been turned off. In another case, staff tried to resuscitate a patient experiencing cardiac arrest but could not place him on a ventilator. The patient died. The hospital, like so many others, was also suffering from a lack of vital medical supplies including antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, and blood. The harsh and arbitrary restrictions imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on importing vital supplies, including fuel, have slowed to a trickle the flow of life-saving assistance and basic goods needed for survival. The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has managed to ship some 300,000 liters of fuel and other supplies into the country during the humanitarian ceasefire. But this shipment is only a fraction of the amount needed……………..”

Wahhabism is an unforgiving sect and culture: unforgiving of those who openly criticize its values and palace clerics and those who oppose its princes. It has been this way since its beginning in some remote desert hellhole of Najd in Central Arabia. There are a few new places where the application of this hard Wahhabi tradition comes up again and again:
In Syria and Iraq the uber-Wahhabis of ISIS or DAESH and Nusra chop heads, massacre “others” and enslave women. That is regressive Wahhabi tradition taken to its doctrinal and practical extremes.
In Yemen, the ‘moderate’ Wahhabis and their paid and hired mercenaries from Jordan to Sudan to Morocco are bombing cities and infrastructure (as well as military targets). As if that is not enough: they are also denying the civilian people of Yemen food and medicine and energy. Almost total destruction, literally scorched earth. Sort of like their cousins of ISIS and DAESH are doing in Iraq and Syria.
This is what some people in my hometown on the Gulf (Persian Gulf, not Gulf of Mexico) once called the Locust Phenomenon. The locust (Jarad= جراد) is a voracious greedy critter, something that also used to be a seasonal delicacy food in the old days in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. I believe it is also mentioned in the Old Testament as food, so it is as kosher as it is halal. It is known to be a destructive extremist: it destroys all crops in its way. That is precisely what they are doing to Yemen with their expensive Western killing toys and with help from Western intelligence and logistics.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Caliphate, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, Terrorism

Target Qatif: ISIS Comes to the Saudi Home to Roost……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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I posted yesterday on ISIS (DAESH), its genesis, its creators, and its enablers. I specifically opined that:
“I have often posted, as have others, that nobody is as responsible for the bloody mess in Syria as Mr. Erdogan of Turkey and his Arab Wahhabi allies (the Al Saud princes, Al Thani of Qatar, and other Persian Gulf Islamists). Together these anti-democratic forces, with some misguided Western cooperation, managed to turn what started as a legitimate demand for Syrian democracy into a nightmare. One more Arab uprising became a Wahhabi Salafi terrorist campaign out of control, fed by petro-money, petro-weapons, and petro-volunteers. The Saudis and Qataris count on being far away from any spillover in their on police states on the Gulf, with no common borders with the inferno that is Syria. Turkey does not: their miscalculation is next door………….”

I take some of that back. The Saudis are not that far away from the domain of ISIS after all. Today a second terrorist bombing against Shi’a Friday (Sabbath) prayers was committed in Qatif, Saudi Arabia. More than twenty one have died so far, tens of others wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility: it looks like ISIS is coming back to the Saudi home to roost.

The incessant Saudi propaganda message that the attack on Yemen is an attack on the Shi’a enemy is bearing fruit at home. Not only is this stalemated war popular among the Wahhabi faithful, it has inspired them. For now, but the Saudi body bags are mounting along the border, a warning against any illusion of what kind of Saudi defeat a ground war will entail.


ISIS is returning home, hitting the softest Saudi target, its Shi’a minority in their mosque. Just as terrorist Jihadis, all graduates of the Wahhabi school of thought, have been doing in Iraq for a decade. ISIS would not dare hit the Wahhabi mosques: that is their bread and butter. That is where much of their money and most of their volunteers come from. That is the original Wahhabi home of ISIS or DAESH, as it is of Al Qaeda and Al Nusra and all the other global and regional terrorist groups………..

More of the Jihadi chickens are coming back home to roost………..

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism

Osama Bin Laden in Love: the Devil We Knew and the Slavery of ISIS……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“My precious wife. ………… I know you are facing a psychological crisis, and I have been thinking of a way out so that we can be together sooner or later. My beloved wife: you should know that you fill my heart with love and beautiful memories and I remember your patience with the hardships for my sake, especially during the prison period. I shall never forget your favor and patience and loyalty to me. My eyes tear up whenever I think of you and our separation. You should know that I will never marry another wife for I can never find a woman like you. I shall remain in the land of Jihad until we meet again………. You have been the best wife in this world and I ask Allah to make you my wife in the other world………… And you, the apple of my eye and most precious of what I have: if you wish to remarry after I am gone I have no objection but I strongly want you to be my wife in Paradise and a woman ho has had tow husbands is allowed to choose one of them on judgment day……….”
(FYI: this is my own abridged partial translation from Arabic. He also pines for his sons and daughters but I left that part out).

Remember when we thought terrorism could not get any worse? So some Westerners now know that Osama Bin Laden was human: he had his weaknesses. I am not comparing him with Dick Cheney here, but he clearly had his human side. If you can forget the thousands who died in the United States, Britain, Bali, Spain, East Africa, and Iraq. Which demands a brief and perhaps superfluous comparison with one Ebharim Awwad (Al Samarrai) also known as the silly Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

Remember when we thought terrorism could not get any worse? It is like a generational shift. Bin Laden was a devout Wahhabi, wtf that means nowadays. He had a college degree and a resume of activity that spanned good Jihad (in Afghanistan although I beg to differ) and bad Jihad (after 1990). He had the usual family life from a Wahhabi perspective: three or four wives, children that he loved at least as much as anyone in the West loves his children. He was also the mastermind of terrorism across the world. His charisma and connections and  money carried the old Al Qaeda to success. His death has hurt the terrorist group: the Egyptian who succeeded him, Al Zawahri, is probably even less charismatic than the silly Caliph of Riqqa and Mosul.

Remember when we thought terrorism could not get any worse? In Iraq, Al Qaeda experienced its first metamorphosis. With the murderous genocidal Jordanian terrorist Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, it became a new uber-sectarian animal. That was how he plunged Iraq into a violent sectarian war, with help from some of the violent Shi’a militias.

Osama was also apparently a man in love, or whatever passed for love during his years of separation from his wives, especially his favorite wife. Could have been the lengthy period of forced celibacy after 2001. The former jailbird who is now the silly Caliph of ISIS (DAESH) would not pine for a wife: he would just walk to the nearest slave market and buy himself a couple of concubine.
That last sentence tells us how much things have changed since 2001. It is a new animal that has almost no limits to what it would do. Al Qaeda of 2001 was the devil we knew, this new one is a devil we should never have had to know. Obviously something went very wrong after 2001. The next step will be pinning the blame on the donkey……….    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Human Right, Media, Persian Gulf, UAE

On the Gulf: Westerners Confusing Luxury Hotels with Human Rights……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“I had been looking forward to this year’s International Human Rights Rank Indicator (IHRRI) which was due to be issued tomorrow but – alas – it has suddenly, and without explanation, been postponed for several months. The IHRRI is (or perhaps was) an international league table of human rights, covering 216 countries. Last year, unbelievably, it placed the United Arab Emirates in 12th position worldwide – between New Zealand and Iceland. No other Arab country came anywhere close to the UAE in terms of human rights performance; Morocco was nearest, in 67th position. When this claim about the Emirates was noted (and ridiculed) on social media, IHRRI deleted the entire league table from its website – again, suddenly and without explanation…………….”

It is not the first time Western experts, pundits, journalists, even some politicians, have confused luxury accommodation and wining and dining with human rights. Especially in the Persian Gulf states. It is the traditional Arab hospitality of the Gulf, misunderstood in the West. This often happens for visitors to the United Arab Emirates-UAE. I have in the past commented on articles by Thomas Friedman and Roger Cohen (I usually enjoy reading Cohen) and possibly David Ignatius (Washington Post) and how they confuse things like luxurious 6-star hosting and accessibility to ‘human rights’ and ‘credibility of leaked information’.

Of course the overwhelming majority of residents of the UAE and other places on the Gulf (95% of them) cannot afford the luxury of these 6-star hotels. So they probably don’t merit human rights.

It is usually hard to be critical of those who offer you 6-star hospitality. Although I recall that Nicholas Kristof (N Y Times) visited Iran a year or two ago and came back to write in favor of tougher economic sanctions against Iran. I am assuming Kristof did not get 6-star or 7-star hospitality from the mullahs in Iran. I doubt that they have it in Tehran now. I blame the Western blockade……..
So maybe the folks at IHRRI are waiting for the UAE to mend its ways so that it can merit being placed next to Iceland on human rights. Perhaps in a year or two, or maybe when hell freezes over……….

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, US Foreign Policy, Wahhabi

Caliphate of Erdogan: How Turkey and her Wahhabi Arab Allies Screwed up Syria…………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“To make sense of this unlikely alliance between Turkey and Saudi Arabia, let’s travel back in time to 2011. Amidst the turmoil of the Arab Uprisings, Erdoğan was counting on the overthrow of the dictatorships of al-Assad, Qaddafi, Mubarak and others, fondly imagining that Muslim Brotherhood parties would then come to power across the Middle East. This was the “Islamic order” of which Erdoğan and his colleagues dreamed, an order which was to be led by Turkey. In an apparent homage to the Ottoman sultans’ tradition of performing their prayers in a newly-conquered capital, Erdoğan declared that he would soon be praying in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. However, Erdoğan has been unable to make good on this promise. Erdoğan’s Syrian venture — the most ambitious such undertaking in the entire 90-year history of the Turkish Republic — has also proved to be the undoing of Turkey’s foreign policy. Intent on overthrowing al-Assad from the very beginning, Erdoğan is one of those responsible for the devastation in Syria today, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States. A March 24, 2013 report in the New York Times stated that 120 cargo flights from Qatar and Saudi Arabia had carried military supplies to Turkey destined for the rebels in Syria. This weaponry was then delivered to the rebels in trucks alleged to belong to Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT).………..”

I have often posted, as have others, that nobody is as responsible for the bloody mess in Syria as Mr. Erdogan of Turkey and his Arab Wahhabi allies (the Al Saud princes, Al Thani of Qatar, and other Persian Gulf Islamists). Together these anti-democratic forces, with some misguided Western cooperation, managed to turn what started as a legitimate demand for Syrian democracy into a nightmare. One more Arab uprising became a Wahhabi Salafi terrorist campaign out of control, fed by petro-money, petro-weapons, and petro-volunteers. The Saudis and Qataris count on being far away from any spillover in their on police states on the Gulf, with no common borders with the inferno that is Syria. Turkey does not: their miscalculation is next door.
Just as the Pakistani ISI helped create the Afghan Taliban and now have to put up with terrorism in Pakistan, the Turks now will face spillover terrorism across their borders. They have the aspiring Kurds and they have millions of Alevis who strongly oppose Erdogan’s Syria adventure. The latter no doubt felt more secure under a secular regime in Ankara than under the Caliphate of Erdogan, ensconced in his new billion dollar royal palace.
    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Marriage, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Postpartum and Marriage in Arabia: Young Prince Bombs Yemen, Takes New Wife, Goes to Paris……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Saudi Arabia’s new young defense minister Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saudi apparently can multi-task. He has drawn the ire of some among the Wahhabi opposition, as well as predictably some senior officers from the ruling family (commoners would not dare express irritation at a royal). The story as told by opposition activists, including Mujtahidd, is as follows:

The prince followed up his trip to Camp David with a quick marriage to a second wife (or maybe a third wife). His first wife, a princess, is going through the after birth period of postpartum when the prince took another wife, another princess/cousin last week, and flew her to a Paris honeymoon. Now what can be more romantic than taking a new wife while your earlier model is struggling with the tough problems of postpartum? Especially if you take the new model to Paris (Abu Bakr Al Samarrai of ISIS, eat your heart out).

Paris is where he and the new bride are: dunno why he did not go to Yemen. So, a new baby, an old wife, and a new wife. Now he is handling a bombing war (on Yemen), a current wife in postpartum complications, and a new wife who God knows how long will last before being traded for a newer model. Plus an elderly father-king surrounded by rival princes: brothers, cousins, minions and all kinds of snake-oil salesmen.

I guess these entitlement people have their own unique problems too……….

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Britain, France, Weapons deals

Weapons Deals: Hollande and Cameron Grow Goatees……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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In my earlier post I opined that if they, the Saudi princes, can get rid of the moustache, then they might have a slew of kings and princes who are as hairless as Francois Hollande or David Cameron or even Angela Merkel. On the other hand, there may be no need: Hollande and Cameron would be glad to grow goatees in their feverish no-holds-barred quest for more weapons contracts.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Death Penalty, Saudi Arabia

One Sector Where Jobs are Growing Fast in the Arabian Peninsula……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Saudi Arabia is advertising for eight new executioners, in a recruitment drive which leading human rights charity Amnesty International has warned is symptomatic of an “unprecedented spike” of judicial killings in the country. An advert for the position, posted on the country’s civil service jobs website, states that no specific qualifications are required for the brutal role which involves “executing a judgement of death” and performing amputations on those convicted of less serious crimes. The application form describes the executioners as “religious functionaries” and says that recruits would be at the lower end of the civil service pay scale…………..”

Saudi Arabia has a high unemployment rate among its 15-16 million citizens, even as it imports about 9 million foreign laborers and other employees. Joblessness among the young citizens (those in their twenties to early thirties) is reportedly fixed for several years now at near 30%. Of course, joblessness among the princes is almost 100% but that is not a problem.

But new reforms instituted by the new king have created new job opportunities for ambitious young Saudis in a unique sector of the economy. Apparently there is one sector where jobs are begging to be filled. Jobs for executioners (swordsmen, head-choppers and crucifiers) and hand choppers are opening fast under the new King Salman. Apparently there are about 8 ranks or levels of such jobs.

P.S: not everybody can apply for these jobs. Shi’as, Safawis, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Vegans, Agnostics, Muslim Brothers, and Zoroastrians (called Majousi or Magi by Wahhabis) need not apply.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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