All posts by Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Dr. Mohammed Haider Ghuloum: trained as an economist, been called a few other names..... الشرقية للبنين- المتنبي- ثانوية الشويخ

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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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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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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For Those of you Who Love Halal and Kosher Calamari…………

         


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“A friend told me the other day that she’d heard a horrifying report on public radio: You know those deep-fried, chewy rings of calamari? Sure. Well, they’re sometimes served in imitation form, made from slices of a pig’s rectum. Wait … what?! And so it happened second-hand, as these things almost always do: An urban legend hatched and spread its wings……… There were no eyewitnesses at all, in fact, and all the other evidence was circumstantial: A recent activist report found signs of modest seafood fraud—one kind of fish mislabeled as another—and a taste test showed that switching rectums for calamari might indeed go undetected. Calhoun did not try to hide the weakness of his case: “Just to repeat one last time,” he said at the close of his radio script, “I have no proof that anyone, anywhere, has ever tried to pass off pork bung as calamari in a restaurant…. …”…………..”

The no-no part is the pork. Otherwise most cultures have a dish that includes the basic, er, alimentary parts of an animal. They have it in the Middle East, in Latin America and elsewhere. Usually it is included within a soup or stew: the Gulf and Iraq Pacha (lamb) or Hispanic Menudo (beef), among others. Of course the squid (khithag in my hometown), from whence the Calamari comes, also has ‘organs’, both for input and output (among other things). I think I shall list this under “Culture”. Still, consuming the tail end of a pig is a tough one to swallow (I will not be rude enough to call it pork rectum rinds). Even if one is a non-halal non-kosher ‘heathen’.
Perhaps the next link may help in this matter:

“A South Korean woman was enjoying a plate of calamari when she suddenly felt a painful “pricking, foreign-body sensation” in her mouth. It was later revealed that twelve squid spermatophores had embedded themselves in her “tongue, cheek, and gums.” Squid A Day at Science 2.0 describes spermatophores as “cups of semen”……..”

Cheers
mhg

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Zero Dark Baghdad? Saudi Detainees in Iraqi Guantanamo………….

         


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“Twenty Saudi detainees in Iraqi prisons were tortured after the Iraqi national team lost the Gulf Cup football tournament to the UAE in a match supervised by a Saudi referee, according to Thamer Balheed, head of the Saudi detainees in Iraq. Balheed told Al Arabiya TV that the Saudi prisoners were severely beaten and insulted by Iraqi prison guards who blamed the Saudi referee for their national team’s 1-2 defeat to the UAE. A sport commentator on an Iraqi television network lost his temper during the match, issuing live prayers against Saudi referee Khalil al-Ghamdi and accusing him of being unfair to Iraq. Iraq and Saudi Arabia have recently resumed security cooperation talks, including discussion on a prisoners exchange deal. This came after a Saudi man was released from an Iraqi jail and said he was tortured by Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Balheed has previously stated that up to 60 Saudi detainees are being held in Iraqi prisons. He noted that they are being kept in different prisons and are all staying in deplorable conditions and exposed to various forms of torture…………….”


This would be a terrible story, if it were (completely) true. Yet it is hard to credit a story of Iraqis torturing Saudi prisoners because they lost a game to Emiratis. Especially if the source is the Saudi semi-official Alarabiya network. I am against both torture and the death penalty: they are both barbaric no matter who inflicts it and who is at the receiving end.

I doubt that any of these Saudis entered Iraq to visit the shrines in Karbala. The Iraqis suspect that most of them snuck (okay, sneaked) in illegally to bomb and murder Iraqi civilians. As they and their other Al-Qaeda colleagues from various Arab states have been doing in Iraq for 12 years. I also suspect that the headlining is partly aimed at creating more hostility toward Iraqi Arabs inside the Arabian Peninsula. However, I can be wrong: torture has been common in Iraq for decades, its art perfected by the Baath Party. So have executions, and the new regime in Baghdad is an avid executioner: as avid as Iran and Saudi Arabia and Texas. It is hard to give up old habits.

Of course, the Saudis automatically quickly behead any foreigner they suspect of plotting terrorism on their soil. I can give a long list of that. I can also give a long list of those beheaded on charges of witchcraft and sorcery and magic and fortune-telling and interpreting dreams (both dry and wet), among other things. And the regime, and the system, are have been at it longer.

On the other hand I saw the film Thirty Dark Zero yesterday. It is about the CIA allegedly torturing its way throughout several little Guantanomos around the world. Torturing its way toward Osama Bin Laden and his merry little band of terrorists (and a bunch of their poor innocent children) in AbbottAndCostelloAbad, Pakistan. 
Cheers
mhg

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Our Wild East: Where Martyrdom is as Cheap as a Fatwa……….

         


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Martyr: 1: a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion  2: a person who sacrifices something of great value and especially life itself for the sake of principle  3: victim; especially : a great or constant sufferer…….. “
“Person who voluntarily suffers death rather than deny his or her religion. Readiness for martyrdom was a collective ideal in ancient Judaism, notably in the era of the Maccabees, and its importance has continued into modern times”
                                                                   
Merriam Webster Dictionary

[Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin, from Late Greek martur, from Greek martus, martur-, witness.] The Free Dictionary

Aljazeera network (of Qatar) announced that one of its correspondents in Syria was “martyred” the other day.
Now I don’t recall a fatwa that news reporters are to be considered “martyrs” if they die on the job. Several reporters have died in Syria, killed by both sides, but nobody has declared them martyrs. Okay, most of these reporters have been “heathens” who can’t go to Paradise anyway, unlike the rest of us good and pious Muslims. But still, there is some injustice here. I would suggest to international news agencies and networks that they hire in-house shaikhs to issue a fatwa each time one of their correspondents dies near a war zone. He would fatwa that he or she died a martyr. That would be the equalizer. After all, if a Salafi terrorist suicide bomber can be called a “martyr”, then I can call my BFFF a martyr if she ever gets run over by a car or a horse or gets mauled by a bear, heaven forbid.
Martyrdom has important implications: it means the ‘subject’ goes straight to heaven, with all the attendant perks and benefits, and no more responsibilities. Al-Jazeera also bestows martyrdom on anyone on any side of any conflict that it sees fit. Most of the Middle East does that (except perhaps for the Israelis, although they probably do have their own Jewish fatwas). If a Bahrain or other potentates crashes his car into a cement wall while drunk, some palace shaikh can pronounce him a “martyr”, and all transgressions are forgiven. A few years ago there was a fire at a tribal wedding inside a huge tent in a GCC state. Dozens of people, mostly women and children died. The fire was set by a jealous earlier wife of the groom. Some shaikh came out with a fatwa that all who died in that fire are “martyrs”. That was fine by me, I agreed in that case: it comforted the bereaved families of the innocent victims of that act or vengeance.
Every day tens of Iraqi civilians are murdered by Salafi terrorist bombs, yet not a single Arab news agency of network would call these innocent victims “martyrs”. Possibly it is probably hard for some “Muslim” media to call a dead Muslim of another sect a “martyr”. Maybe it all depends on who killed them, but it goes beyond that.
Many Lebanese have died at Israel hands during their wars, and no doubt Israeli Jews (and Druze) are considered heathen by most if not all Muslims. Yet no palace shaikhs, and hardly any Arab networks, came out and called these “martyrs”. On the contrary, I know, that some of them thought otherwise. Yet unlike the Iraqi victims, these Lebanese were not killed by decent Wahhabi suicide Jihadists. Which makes me wonder if these Lebanese, like the innocent Iraqi victims, are also considered “heathens”.

Ich glaube we should call all those who die in any conflict ‘martyrs”. That simple but practical would solve the problem for me. Better yet: why not declare anybody who dies anywhere of any case a “martyr”. Then, someday we’ll all be martyrs.

Cheers
mhg

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Controlling Syria: is the Regime as Strong as Never? Sharing a Jihadist Paradise with Bashar Al-Assad………

         


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“Head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Sheikh Hashem Safieddine stressed that the Syrian government is as strong as ever, and said those waiting for the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad and its possible impact on Lebanon’s next parliamentary elections are mistaken. Sheikh Safieddine’s remarks came while certain foreign countries, including the US, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are trying hard to “overthrow the Syrian government” in order to influence Lebanon’s next parliamentary elections. He noted that Lebanon’s next parliamentary elections and formation of the new government in the country “will take place while Syria’s incumbent government will still be in power”, Al-Ahd news agency reported. Sheikh Safieddine said those thinking about the collapse of the Syrian government should know that pressures cannot force it to fall, alluding that President Assad’s government will survive beyond Lebanon’s upcoming parliamentary elections……………”


He said that “the Syrian government is as strong as ever”. An odd Iranian and Hezbollah assessment. This, or a position close to it, has also been repeated by some Iranian officials over the past months. Do these Hezbollah and Iranian officials know something the rest of the world doesn’t know? Something even CNN and Wolf Blitzer and the democratic shaikhs of Qatar don’t know? Or are they being delusional? Possibly putting the best face on a bad situation? So how can it be as strong as ever if it does not control a large swath of the country and if everyone outside Damascus agrees that there will be regime change ‘at some point’ in the future?
No doubt regime change is coming but the squabble may be over the “how and when and who” of it. That “how and when and who” determines the relative winners and losers in this game that goes beyond the borders of Syria. It is probably the details they are fighting over and it is true that “the devil is in the details”.

Who will control Syria: the toothless political exiles of the Syrian National Council, or is it a Coalition, (SNC) or the heavily-armed Jihadists and Al-Qaeda affiliates? Poor, poor Syrian people: their choices are all lousy. The SNC is basically a new-old bureaucracy waiting for the West and the GCC to hand it the keys to Damascus (like the Western Allies to for the Hashemites in 1918). It is the Jihadists who are doing most of the fighting inside the country, and they know the West does not want them anywhere near the seat of power (even as some Arabs do). But they don’t have to be in Damascus to exert control. Besides, many of them are foreign Arabs and not Syrians. No doubt the Jihadists are more motivated: if they live they win, if they die they expect rivers of wine and pretty Houris as reward.
Of course, my educated, well logical, guess is that they will most likely end up consoling each other in Jehannam (hell), possibly right next door to Bashar Al-Assad. Possibly sharing a hot suite with a few of the Arab potentates who support and finance them
.
Cheers
mhg

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Jackasses of the Middle East: Agents Provocateurs of Upper Egypt……..

         


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Another jackass starts a war. A district in Minya in Upper Egypt was the scene of a dispute that erupted into a deadly battle. The battle was caused by an ass (of the donkey variety) trespassing family farms without permission. As a result a gun battle ensued between two families in adjacent villages in which a cattle trader and a farmer were killed and three others wounded. Three cattle barns were also burned. Investigation showed that the dispute was started when the unnamed ass (donkey) trespassed the farmlands of Ali and consumed a quantity of fresh feed. Ali got pissed and started a fight with Mohammed who called his relatives for help. Thus ensued the violent incident.
 
I know I have not posted much on asses (donkeys) lately, even though I am partial to the four-legged variety. I am also quite familiar with the two-legged asses (donkeys) even though I am not fond of them. We have plenty of both in our region, and this statement should not be taken as a comment on anyone in Syria or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or even Jordan and Lebanon.
Anyway, I have decided to add links to some of my previous posts that are related to asses, jackasses and donkeys (and others):


Donkey Milk, Donkey Brain: Middle East Gender Gap

African Zebras and Middle East Donkeys, Asses and Power from Damascus to the Gulf

Those Underrated Powerful Asses of the GCC States

Cities of Asses: from Damascus to Conquered Hispaniola

Valentine and Equus Asinus in the Middle East- Damascus The Ancient City of Asses- The Revered Donkeys of Egypt- What About George Washington?

Those Underrated Powerful Asses of the GCC States

Rumi: Iranian Cleric Mixes Bestiality with Politics

Political Animal Planet: An Assembly of Jackass Penguins of Patagonia

Obama’s Colombian Donkey Gift, Asses of the Middle East

Political Donkeys of Kurdistan, Jackasses of the Gulf, Harry Belafonte

When Saudi Asses Opined on Egyptian Happiness, Cyprus Donkeys

The Dog, the Cow, the Ass, and Arab Leaders

Middle East Anthropology: Abused Donkeys, Elite Jackasses, Rabbits and Rats

A Churchillian Twist on Bush Economics- On Plebeian Jackasses, Middle East Politics, Netanyahu, and CPAC 2009

Noble Donkeys of Egypt, Real Middle East Assess, Vive le Roi

King of Bahrain Congratulated for Paying Gulf Newspaper to Award Him Meaningless Prize

Cheers
mhg

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Wahhabi Distortion of Islam: Banning Elections, Idolizing Kings and Princes………

         


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“She said: Kings, when they enter a land, they ruin it, and make its noble people its meanest, thus do they behave…….” Holy Quran (Saurat al-Naml: The Ants)
(Some might say I am taking it out of context. They’re probably wrong)

“Election is banned in Islam: Saudi scholar. A well-known Saudi Islamic scholar has issued a new fatwa (edict) saying holding elections for a president or another form of leadership is prohibited in Islam. Sheikh Abdul Rahman bin Nassir Al Barrak, reputed for his radical views, described western-style elections as an alien phenomenon to Islamic countries.“Electing a president or another form of leadership or council members is prohibited in Islam as it has been introduced by the enemies of Moslems,” he wrote on his Twitter page, according to Saudi newspapers. “Selecting an Imam (leader) must be up to the decision-making people not the public…election is a corrupt system which is not based on any legal or logical concept for those who enforce this system by some Moslems…this system has been brought by the anti-Islam parties who have occupied Moslem land.”………..”

This Wahhabi shaikh played music to the ears of the absolute princes: “Selecting a leader must be up to the decision-making people not the public”


This “scholar” will probably get his rewards in this world. It must be clear by now that many if not most of these Saudi clerics and muftis are basically mercenaries (or outlying extremists, or both) . The chief Mufti Shaikh Al Shaikh repeatedly calls protesters and dissidents infiltrators who seek to create “fitna” (except in Syria and Libya for some odd reason). Most of the rest of the Saudi clerics, those who are not in prison or in exile, usually fall in line.
Of course they are distorting history and Islam, these Wahhabi shaikhs of the palace. It is they who are un-Islamic, since Islam was, is, against absolute hereditary monarchy. Islamic leaders, in the early decades when true Islam ruled, where chosen by the Muslims. (They probably also did some politicking). That was how the first four caliphs came to be leaders: from Abu Bakr to Omar and Othman and Ali. Later, the Umayyads in Damascus started the first hereditary dynastic monarchy in Islam. That started a trend that continued until the Mongols sacked Baghdad.

Cheers
mhg

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Cheers
mhg

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The Vanishing Fear: Kings of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia get New Free Prizes………………

         


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“All these milder monarchies now risk slipping into the habits of the Gulf’s worst human-rights offenders, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The 2011 crackdown by Bahrain’s rulers left nearly 100 dead and the island kingdom dangerously split between a Shia majority and loyalist Sunnis. Hopes of respite rose when the government accepted the recommendations of an international panel for reform. It has implemented almost none of them, however, and Bahraini courts have continued to dispense cruel justice. This month the highest appeal court upheld life sentences for seven men accused of calling for anti-government demonstrations. Saudi Arabia, however, remains in a league of its own, ranked by Freedom House, along with North Korea and Equatorial Guinea, as one of the world’s least free nations. Its small, harassed band of rights campaigners celebrates such small advances as the induction of women into the shura council. But they face a double challenge—not only from the state but from a religious right that habitually brands democracy supporters as apostates from Islam. ………………..”

Also sprach The Economist, turning its attention back to the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian-American Gulf. In several of the Gulf states, the idea of “reform” is just not tenable under some of the current ruling clans. I can name at least two of them. Can you imagine several thousand Al Saud princes giving up their life-and-death-and-loot grip on the vast country? Can you imagine the leech-like Al Khalifa clan voluntarily releasing their blood-sucking grip over the islands of Bahrain?
Okay, the Al-Saud start to make the right noises about women’s rights and the West goes ape in excitement, thinking their ‘values’ are taking hold. The Al Khalifa allow booze and prostitution in their hotels, and some in the West, mostly European expatriates whose fortunes are tied to the rulers, call that enlightenment. Assigning a few token women to a toothless appointed body in Riyadh that prolongs the repression of the absolute monarchy is called reform. Allowing booze and sinning in Manama hotels (mostly for the benefit of thirsty and hungry Saudi faithful) is supposed to imply that the ruling gang is reform-minded. Some may even call it humanitarian.
Reform? My well-educated guess is that probably very likely possibly almost certainly it is absofuckinglutely too late for mere “reform” in those two oligarchies. It will go on until it is resolved. The fear is gone or it is on its way out.

Cheers
mhg

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