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
Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Persian-American Gulf, UAE

UAE Flashpoint: Blackwater in Zayed Military City…………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom. Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times. The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year. …… The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials……..”

The al-Nahayn clan of Abu Dhabi are moving up in the world. Not only are they the second biggest importer of weapons in the world (and aiming to be the absolute biggest) with a native population of only a few hundred thousand. They are also gathering an elite foreign mercenary force under former Blackwater executives. It is not clear what their goal is, but they can probably wreak havoc in places like Oman and some of the poorer emirates that are more likely to rebel. They can also start probing around the Persian-American Gulf in a way that could start a military conflict with Iran: that is very likely to draw in the United States. In other words, this despotic oil-soaked Abu Dhabi clan could force Americans to enter yet another war in the Middle East, just as the Wikileaks cables told us they had urged the USA to do. A very dangerous situation.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Occupied Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

SS Bahrain: Normal Life under Occupation………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“In the back alleys and streets of this Shiite Muslim town, a police crackdown looms at any hour of the day, but never more so than at nightfall, when even innocuous civil disobedience can lead to jail and perhaps torture. The angry young men here know from experience that the police will use helicopters, blunderbuss rifles, and tear gas to confront them, but they plot their next nighttime protest march nevertheless, in what’s become a cat-and-mouse game under Bahrain’s state of emergency, imposed to crush what remains of the country’s protest movement. The police, mainly Sunni Muslims recruited from Pakistan’s Baluchistan province as well as Yemen, Syria, and other Muslim countries, deploy three or four vans at the entrances to this town’s residential neighborhoods. Inside are 12 to 20 men ready to pounce the first moment they hear of a demonstration – even a candlelight vigil – against the government…….. Still, every night in many Bahraini villages and towns, residents gather on their rooftops at 8:15 and again at 10 to issue what’s become a protest cry: “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.” Police deploy helicopters to try to drown out this protest, and to drop tear gas canisters on the rooftops………”

They have stolen almost everything there is to steal from Bahrain. The rapacious tribal party of the Al Khalifa had to keep most of their people impoverished in order for the shaikhs and shaikhas (princes and princesses) to live in the style of their richer neighboring royals in Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Gulf states. They have spent the thirty-five of suspended politics robbing the poor island blind, its native villages nearly destitute.
Now they are also stealing the rest: their freedom, their right to speak for themselves, and they are trying to steal their faith through the systematic destruction of Shi’a mosques and shrines.
Backed by unlimited money and troops from the al-Saud despots, supported as usual by the Salafi sycophants, and possible promises not to worry about the Obama administration, the Al Khalifa feel they can do whatever they want to the captive country.
(FYI: nobody seems to worry about the Obama administration. It is focused like a laser beam on the 2012 elections, which means it is focused like a laser beam on Osama (dead), al-Qaeda, and Pakistan. It is also focused on keeping the Palestine-Israel issue unresolved until after 2012. Why do you think Mitchell gave up? They are also focused on keeping the al-Saud and al-Nahayan despots happy and pumping oil and buying more weapons that they can’t use. Bahrain’s vile al-Khalifa clan don’t count: they are just an appendage of the al-Saud dynasty and they are just happy to remain in control of the finances of the captive islands.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq

Arab Revolutions: the Midterm Grades……….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

It is midterm time for Arab revolutions, which started right after Tunisian Mohammed Bu’azizi torched himself in protest last December. In Egypt, the beating death of Khaled Said had already shocked the country and planted the seeds of January 25. I grade them here according to performance:

Egypt  B: Mubarak is gone but too soon for an A or A- (I never gave above A-).

Tunisia   B: Still a struggle, and too soon for an A-.

Libya   C+: So much to go. We don’t even know who will emerge among the rebel leaders. Some of them were with Qaddafi until recently.

Yemen  C+: Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to leave, but is backtracking

Bahrain  C: The regime had to import foreign occupation forces to suppress its people. Too early to tell. The al-Khalifa clan (some Bahrainis consider the treasonous for importing foreign forces), Saudi occupation forces, and imported mercenaries from Pakistan and Jordan and other places are ruthless.

Syria  C: Still ongoing, although analysts bet the regime will survive (they also mostly thought Bin Ali and Mubrak would survive at the beginning of their revolutions). It is not clear to me who is leading the Syrian uprising, who will dominate. They are against the regime, but what do they stand for? Syrians are traditionally a tolerant secular people, but it is hard to assess how 50 years of Ba’ath dictatorship has affected that (since 1963, before the Assads). There seem to be several factions: various secularists (including exiled Ba’athists), various Muslim Brothers, Salafis. It is not clear how much commitment any of these groups has for democracy. You can scratch the Salafis out as far as democracy is concerned: they believe in it even less than the Ba’ath Party does. We are talking Taliban here. Yet the ruling Ba’ath dictatorship, like other despots in Egypt and Tunisia and Algeria and Bahrain, are chiefly responsible for the growth of fundamentalism.

Saudi Arabia  F- (get my point?): Pathetic: only one guy was brave enough to come out into the street of Riyadh and talk to foreign media and protest the heavy security. Khaled al-Jehany said his country was like a big prison. Now he has been in a small cell in a smaller prison ever since. Regime and its palace Salafi shaikhs have most people terrified of prison and torture in this world and hell in the other world. Yet there are many brave men and women in the Arabian Peninsula, for many are in prison and in exile.

UAE   F:   (a few guys thrown in prison by the al-Nahayan was enough to shut everybody up in this new police state).
 
Oman C:  (for trying).
Algeria:  D.      Jordan: C-.    Morocco: C
Qatar: “WTF is an uprising?”

(Lebanon and Iraq: is it just an illusion, or do Iraq and Lebanon seem like the most stable, most democratic, most free Arab countries now)?
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Al-Qaeda, Iraq, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism

Al-Qaeda Finances: Have Money, Will Travel………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“This puts people like Abd al-Hamid al-Mujil in an uncomfortable position. Described by fellow jihadists as the “million-dollar man” for his successful fundraising on behalf of al Qaeda and other jihadi groups, Mujil directed the office of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), a charity in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Both he and the IIRO office he headed were designated as terrorist entities by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2006. But even if being “named and shamed” forced Mujil out of the terror-finance business, there are many others just like him. Just this week, David Cohen, the head of the Treasury Department’s Terrorism and Financial Intelligence branch told CNN that major donors from the Gulf states remain the key sources of funding for the al Qaeda core. There are no doubt dozens of radical funders now worrying that their names, bank accounts, or addresses will comes up in bin Laden’s spreadsheets — or “pocket litter” — and for good reason.……..”

I have always argued that all these terrorist operations from Iraq to Pakistan must cost a lot of money. More money than the locals could provide. I have always written here that following the money trail from Iraq or Pakistan or Yemen will lead so a huge field of petroleum, an oil well. This is part of someone’s ‘foreign policy’, at least the Iraq part is. Bring pressure on Iraq by sending suicide terrorists across the border and finance them (the money is peanuts for the deep pocketed princes). Bring pressure on Pakistan and others the same way. Meanwhile, the money and the Salafi fatwas will keep the bombers away from the home front. As for the Western allies, and the other Arabs who fall victim? Oh, well, there is such a thing as collateral damage.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Iran, Middle East, UAE, WTF

Following Laika and Armstrong: Abu Dhabi and Iran Head Into Space………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“The world could soon see the first Emirati in space, as the Global Space and Satellite Forum 2011 (GSSF)focused on developing the regional space industry’s experts of the future. During the final day of GSSF, senior representatives from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) delivered an interactive UAE Space Career and Exploration video uplink to a gathering of aspiring Emirati astronauts and space industry hopefuls. Dr Omar Al Emam, Voluntary Space Technology Advisor, Arab Science and Technology Foundation (ASTF), spoke about the work of the NASA Lunar Science Institute in California and the importance of hands-on space technology for the youth of the region..……..”

Space exploration sure has come a long way. Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. I believe Alan Shepard (?) was the first American in space, although Neil Armstrong is the most known. In addition to so many humans having gone into space, there are many of other species as well. The Soviet Union, the first country to invade space, sent the first dog and first human into orbit in space (not together). Laika, a dedicated communist whom some Russians suspected of being a secret Trotskyite, was the first dog and her name means “barker”, as in woof woof. The Americans also sent many animals over time. The most popular animals for sending into space were your nearest cousins the simians. Which makes sense.
The UAE is hoping to send an astronaut into space aboard an American spaceship. The Saudis sent one of their princes on an American mission during the 1980s. When the prince landed back on Earth safely he was asked what was the toughest task he faced in space, and his answer was typical “I had a hard time determining which way to face Mecca”. The prince was a pilot but apparently he was no scientist. I understand that he was never asked another question again.
Back to the United Arab Emirates: it is not clear who they will send if NASA agrees, some years down the road. Can it be another shaikh? I doubt that Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed al-Nahayn, ruler of Abu Dhabi will go: he is probably too old and looks rather lumpy. Shaikh Mohammed of Dubai looks too damn serious for anyone to be locked up with in a small spaceship. All the other Bin Zayed al-Nahayan don’t look any more cheerful for company. I was going to nominate their foreign minister Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed al-Nahayn, Metternich of Abu Dhabi, but then who will run the march of our world toward peace and democracy in his absence?
The Iranians have also been threatening to send a man into space during this decade. They already have some satellites up and will launch more this year or next. They have not announced yet whether their spaceman will be a mullah (cleric) or a ‘civilian’. Ahmadinejad will be out of office by that time, which may mean something in this context, or maybe not.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Egypt, Iran, Religion, Saudi Arabia

An Iranian Exorcist, Saudi Muftis, Egyptian Abdelwahhab…………….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“Twenty-five close collaborators and supporters of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his influential Chief of Staff, Esfandyar Rahim Mashai, have been arrested, allegedly including “exorcist” or “djinn catcher” Abbas Ghaffari. Many speculate this is due to a quarrel between Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei over the resignation of Iran’s minister of intelligence. Last week, Morteza Nabavi, a conservative politician, accused [fa] team Ahmadinejad of thinking they were being empowered by djinns or genies. In a cabinet meeting on Sunday 8 May, 2011, Ahmadinejad responded by dismissing [fa] the notion that he has exorcists in his government as a joke. You can watch the video here [fa]……..”

As if he has not had enough quarrels, Ahamadinejad is reported to have lost other allies, including his indispensable Jinn catcher. Many of us think, erroneously, that only Catholics have Jinn catchers, or exorcists. We all do. What do you think all these official Muftis are? Egypt’s al-Azhar Mufti was appointed by Hosni Mubarak from within his own ruling party, and his job was to chase away any notion that the rule of a dictator may be un-Islamic. He tried to do his job, condemning the revolutionaries before and after January 25. But he has seen the light, apparently. Then there is that other great palace exorcist, the Saudi Mufti Shaikh Al Al Shaikh. He did his best to exorcise the Jinns of revolution and protest from the streets of Riyadh and Jeddah, and he succeeded. Shaikh Al Al Shaikh failed in the Eastern Province, but then these guys (and gals) in Qatif and Dhahran are not supposed to be true Muslims anyway, according the the not-s-secret teachings of Al and his ilk.
One advantage of an exorcist being part of the regimes: he won’t go to prison and get flogged in Iran and he won’t get flogged and beheaded in Saudi Arabia.
(FYI, only for those who are new to my blog: Shaikh Al Al-Shaikh is a direct descendant of Shaikh (a k a Imam) Mohammed Bin Abdulwahhab after whom the term “Wahhabi” was named. He was from the Najd area and should not be confused with the late great Egyptian musician and singer Mohammed Abdelwahhab who was not a Salafi (nor a Shi’a nor a Mthodist). Did I write that there are many Al Al-Shaikhs in various high positions in the Saudi state? Did I also write that I enjoyed the songs of Abdelwahhab, including al-Gondool, Cleopatra, al-Nahr al-Khaled, etc)
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Israel, Middle East, Palestine

Shaikh Fatah and Prince Hamas and King Bibi of Palestine and the Gulf…

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“Palestine to merge with GCC when liberated. The Palestinian government seeks support from the GCC countries to resolve their long-standing conflicts with Israel and wants to merge with the GCC bloc when liberated. Dr Khairi Al Oraidi, Ambassador of Palestine to the UAE., addressing the media on the occasion of the Nakba or catastrophe day at the embassy premises on Thursday, said: “I believe in the important role which the GCC countries have been playing in the region socially and politically.” So, if Palestine or any other country becomes part of the GCC countries, it will be a great support for them especially for the people of Palestine, the ambassador said. Palestinians mark Nakba Day to remember the 63rd anniversary of ‘Nakba’ or ‘catastrophe’, a term Palestinian refugees use to describe their expulsion from their homes and towns when Israel was created on occupied Palestinian 
territories in 1948……..”

Okay, this should run its course soon. First Jordan, then Morocco, and now Palestine-of-the-future. I do believe the GCC summit in Riyadh opened the door for this new #FunnyGCC laughter-fest, and deservedly so. Time to stop: we already look, and sound, like the idiots of the international community (for elaboration read my blog post of yesterday and other posts of earlier days). The GCC leadership, the secretary general, that close friend and retainer of the Bahrain regime, ought to hold a news conference and explain to the peoples of our region WTF the GCC leaders meant, if anything, with their strange statement about Morocco and Jordan. I joked in one of my tweets that Benjamin Netanyahu may apply as well, but afterwards I realized that he is not an Arab ruler. Netanyahu would have to get the approval of his Knesset and his people first. And he knows it, he is not a total schmuck (that would be Lieberman, both of them). Dommage.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Iran

Ahmadinejad (and Obama) in a New Fight with Parliament………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“A blazing row has erupted between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and parliament speaker Ali Larijani over the restructuring of ministries, media reports said on Thursday, in a fresh sign of tension in Iran’s ruling conservative camp. The row comes shortly after an unprecedented rift surfaced between Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which saw the president disappear from public life for nearly two weeks. Larijani, an ardent critic of the president who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in 2005 presidential elections, publicly accused the president on Wednesday of “violating the law” by not following parliamentary procedures on the merger of ministries. “If the government has ambiguities in understanding the law, the parliament can explain the law to the government,” the reformist Arman newspaper on Thursday quoted Larijani as saying in sharp remarks aimed at Ahmadinejad. At the centre of the row are government proposals to merge several ministries, including energy and oil, so as to reduce their numbers to 17 from 21 in accordance with a overarching five year plan……..”

No sooner was the powder dry from his losing skirmish with Khamenei than Ahmadinejad was in another fight, this time with Parliament and its Speaker Ali Larijani. This one is also about the allocation of power. But this is a rehash: presidents are always in a struggle with legislatures, just ask Mr. Obama. It seems that Mr. Ahmadinejad has serious problems with people named Ali. It is also notable that as we get closer to the next election round in Iran, these political and policy tensions erupt into public disputes. It is a common fight between the executive and legislative branches of government over political turf and policy goals.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Iran

Ahmadinejad Bows to Khamenei: no Iranian Trotsky………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“President stressed the importance of the Rule of Just Jurisprudent (Velayat-e-Faqih) and said the government would serve Islam, the Islamic Revolution and the nation. President Ahmadinejad made the remarks during the cabinet session in Tehran. Dr.Ahmadinejad said that his government would continue defending the Rule of Just Jurisprudent. President urged all officials to defend the notion of Supreme Jurisprudence which has been inherited by Iranians throughout centuries. ‘I hope all those who have been deviated from the true path of Supreme Jurisprudence to return to the reality,’ President Ahmadinejad said………”

Also Sprach the official website of Iran’s president.
So, after several weeks of tension and political poker, or is it chess, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has thrown in the towel and accepted the supremacy of Ayatollah Khamenei. Like any good Iranian president since the very second one, he has acceded to the wishes of the Supreme Jurisprudent, reinstating the minister of intelligence he had sacked a few weeks ago. In doing so, he has underlined that Iran is indeed a theocracy.
Only one Iranian president has ever defied the “leader” in a sustained way, and that was the first president of the Islamic Republic, Abulhassan Bani-Sadr, who had to escape to France quickly before his arrest. But Bani-Sadr was mot pitted against just any “Supreme Leader”; he was pitted against Ayatollah Khomenei, father of the republic.
For a few days it looked like Ahmadinejad would hold the line and end up losing his job (but saving his principles). It would have been intriguing: Ahmadinejad as an unlikely rebel against the system that made him a leader. An Iranian Trotsky, if you will (okay, I agree it is a stretch). But, like the reformist Mohammed Khatemi before him, he decided to cling to the job. Oh well, now we really know who is the boss.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Salafi, Saudi Arabia

A Salafi Education System, an Orphanage………….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF
“Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 were flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official said today. The girls received 10 lashes each under the country’s strict interpretation of Islamic law at a women’s prison in Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, in the west of the desert state. ‘The order against the six orphans is a legitimate court order,’ Mohammed al-Awadh, the public relations manager at the Ministry of Social Affairs, said. ‘The ministry does not have the right to interfere in a court order.’ The girls received 10 lashes each under the country’s strict interpretation of Islamic law at a women’s prison in the city of Medina, Saudi Arabia. He gave no details of the ruling but the Arabic-language newspaper Okaz said the girls had been convicted of ‘acts of mischief’ and attacking the director of the orphanage. The girls defended their actions, saying they were harassed by the director, Okaz reported. International human rights groups have criticised the Saudi justice system for applying corporal punishment for petty crimes, as well as limb amputations for thieves and beheadings for murderers under its strict interpretation of Islamic law…..In January 2010 a teenage girl was sentenced to 90 lashes and two months in prison for hitting her school principal on the head with a cup when she took away her mobile phone……..”

Notice these were girls, female students, who were flogged. Male students would not get flogged for such actions. I have never read of male students getting flogged for defiance. Salafi shaikhs have whole lectures about the when, how, and where of beating one’s wife. One can see some on YouTube . These were also orphan girls, which means they are easy prey for these animals.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]