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 League, Arab Media, Culture, Free Speech, Haiku, Middle East

A Dummy’s Haiku Guide to Free Speech in the Middle East: from Islamic to Nomadic to ……..

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Haiku:
About Free Speech…
Can it be free at a price?………..
Tell our leaders…….

So what is this “free speech” that many constitutions claim to allow but few actually do? Especially in the Middle East:

  • The Arab League considers free speech, to the extent that it considers anything seriously, as whatever each existing government in power wants it to be. Especially those regimes with deep pockets.
  • In Egypt, free speech is whatever does not criticize the president and insult the armed forces (apparently there is some difference), or mentions Mohammed Morsi without adding the term “deposed” as a prefix. Or anything that does not point out that Egypt (or even Cairo) are not, as the natives and a few Arabs claim, Mother of the World.
  • Al-Azhar sheikhs in Cairo define free speech as their interpretation of the  Holy Quran, the Hadith, and more importantly whatever the current president of the country says.
  • Less stable and more violent Arab countries have a more flexible definition of free speech. In Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, free speech is more nomadic: it depends on which part of the country you are in (and on who you are). Which might be considered by some as an improvement over what it is in other Middle East countries.
  • In Somalia, Sudan, and Djibouti, also considered “Arab” countries, you ask anyone about free speech and he or she might respond: WTF is that?
  • Free Speech in the whole “Persian-American” Gulf region will be covered in the next post, right after this one.
  • Western powers consider free speech in the Middle East as whatever encourages the ruling avaricious oligarchs to spend more money on weapons of death and repression.
  • Ist das klar?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
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Death Penalty, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sectarianism, Shi'as

Of Chopped Heads and a Stoned Embassy: the Iranians Help the Saudis………

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The Iranians, some of the clerics and their followers, have a knack for shooting themselves in the foot. They did it again last week, in the aftermath of a gruesome Saudi festival of executions of 47 people by beheading in one day. Just as the world was building up outrage at the judiciously suspect mass killings, the Iranians misjudged and helped the Saudis change the subject.
The Iranians have done it again. They reminded the world, and especially the American people and media, of that “other” embassy attack in 1979. “Some” groups attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran last week, thus rightly creating outrage among the diplomatic classes across the world.
By allowing it to happen, the Iranians helped change the subject. World media, especially in the USA, have forgotten that 47 people were beheaded by the Saudis on New Year’s Day. They have focused, with a lot of help from Washington lobbyists and special interests, on the embassy in Tehran and on the execution of Sheikh Nimr Al Nimr.

A mass execution of 47 is now being headlined as the execution of one Shi’a cleric. As I said, some in Iran are quite good at helping their sectarian Wahhabi enemies change the subject.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Azhar, Arabian Peninsula, Death Penalty, Sectarian, Wahhabi

Saudi Beheading Festival: Egypt’s Al Azhar, Respected No More, Praises Wahhabi Butchery………..

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“Clerics (sheikhs) of Al Azhar (not so shareef) stressed that Saudi Arabia has executed the laws of Allah (God, Yahweh, etc) on 47 “terrorists:” today, Saturday morning. They told Alarabiya (semi-official Saudi network)  that Saudis applied the Shari’a of Allah and applied the just punishment as God demanded………”

Al Azhar , whose not-so-grand sheikh was a functionary of Hosni Mubarak’s party and regime in Egypt before changing clothes, refrained from claiming that Allah (God, Yahweh) personally texted the Saudi King and expressed approval of the massive beheading executions (47 had their heads chopped off on Saturday). That included sheikh Al Nimr who was not involved in any terrorist activity. Except for calling for reform and democracy and equality in the blighted Wahhabi kingdom. Adding insult to injury, the bodies of those beheaded, including the heads, will NOT be returned to their families.

One thing is clear: the government-paid Egyptian sheikhs/bureaucrats of Al Azhar know where the money is, even if it is less these days than it used to be.

Other Arab regimes, especially those tribal autocrats on the Persian Gulf, banned any public criticism of the executions.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Sorcery, Yemen

Yemen War Awaits the Secret Shari’a Weapon……….

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انشودة المرتزقة:
بلاد العرب اوطاني ,    وكل العرب اخواني
من الشام لكولومبيا    و استراليا وجنوب افريقيا

Yemen is a problem the Saudis themselves have created. Yemen is already spilling over the border. An unmotivated army with the best Western weapons cannot seem to defeat the Houthi tribal guerrillas and the remnants of the Yemeni army. The army of the poorest Arab country outside Africa.

Not even after many months of indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities and the infrastructure. Not even with the help of hired and paid foreign mercenaries from South America and Australia and Africa, courtesy of the potentates of the United Arab Emirates. Not even with the dutiful help of the mighty Obama Administration in targeting and blockading and other logistics. They even have a couple of classic local Yemeni stooges pretending to run Yemen from hotels in Riyadh, presumably under the non-existent leadership of former president Generalissimo Hadi Al Zombie. General Hadi got a Kim-Jong-Un style 99.8% of the vote in elections organized by the Gulf princes (Bashar Al Assad got about 88% last year, Hassan Rouhani got less than 60%). Even as a 30-year old Saudi prince is trying to conduct a genocidal war against it, also from Riyadh.

The Saudis did not learn from their earlier 2009 attempt at military intervention in Yemen. That was a big failure. Now the new Yemen war is definitely spilling over into Saudi Arabia, into regions that were usurped and annexed from Yemen in the 1930s. The rugged Yemeni tribal guerrillas are not like the peaceful urban and village people of Bahrain of 2011. The Saudis and their allies and mercenaries have probably bitten more than they can chew this time. And they have strengthened AQAP and ISIS in Southern Arabia.

They should get out of the way and let the Yemenis settle their matters: unlike in Syria, there are no Iranian or Lebanese forces or militias in Yemen. Not yet. Foreign powers find it difficult to control the country. Resort to witchcraft and sorcery is banned by Saudi clerics, on the pain of death. So, they can only carpet bomb it and kill many of its innocent people.

Unless their hundreds of thousands of graduates of local Islamic Shari’a colleges and universities are working on a decisive secret weapon.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Jihadis, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey

Mediocrity in Syria: the Turkish-Saudi Camel Gives Birth to a Mouse………

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تمخض الجمل فولد فأرا
“The camel went into labor and gave birth to a mouse” An excellent Arab saying.

The Saudi king and officials met this week with the new Caliph of Turkey, the Sultan Erdogan. They met in the Saudi capital Riyadh, and came up with a very unoriginal outcome. They called the outcome a “Strategic Cooperation Council”, not a good start. Not an original title at all, and hence not promising at all for the future of this arrangement. Most likely a product of the mediocre mind of Mr. Addle Al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister. As Arabs have wisely said for centuries: this camel went into labor and gave birth to a mouse. Unsatisfying to all.

The Saudis (and Qataris as well) face a couple of dilemmas, in Syria and Yemen. Syria is safely far away from their borders, so any mischief would not spill over the border. They may think they are “playing with the house chips“, in Las Vegas gambling parlance. If they win in Syria they would have struck a hard blow at their Iranian rivals; if they lose, well, nothing has changed since before 2011. They, their proxies, are not winning in Syria now. All the early predictions that Al Assad would be out of Damascus within weeks or months are coming back to haunt Western governments (and some Arab regimes). Even I started to believe and expect it in those late months of 2011.

But that prediction was mostly Arab propaganda created by Salafists and Wahhabis on the Persian Gulf and accepted by Western media as the truth. It was sold to the Obama administration by some Gulf princes and potentates and some Western “intellectuals” like Bernard-Henri Levy and and non-intellectuals John McCain and Joe Lieberman. They all, from Clinton to Cameron waited for the announcement of the scheduled departure of Assad and his cronies. It worked in Libya, or so they thought, so why not in Syria?

They have failed, but their money and weapons and Salafist volunteers also created and enabled the violent Caliphate of ISIS or DAESH. With active Turkish help and connivance. But like their other creation Al Qaeda, ISIS is also now threatening to bite them.

Erdogan will not solve the Saudi/Qatari dilemma in Syria. There are hints that it may be spilling over his own border.

He certainly will not solve their Yemeni problem, but that is a topic for another posting. Perhaps the next one.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Bible, Christmas, Jesus, Jews, Religion

Jesus Economics: He Comes to America at Christmas, Walks Into a……………..

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Someone posted a poll on social media early today about whether Jesus would be allowed into America. Here was my response:

  • He, Jesus Christ, would probably be put on a no-fly list.
  • If not, some other passenger (almost certainly an American) would complain that he feels uncomfortable with someone dressed in a robe, a hairy raghead mumbling some strange language, on the same airplane. So, Jesus would be bounced off the flight.
  • Let‘s assume that he manages to make it, perhaps walking across from Mexico or Canada. He will not be allowed into any church because his attire (robe and sandals) is deemed un-Christian.
  • Besides he wouldn’t know what a church is. Jesus would look for a synagogue upon arrival. Lucky for him, like me in my teens, he’d most likely land in New York City.
  • He wouldn’t be any more welcome in a synagogue than in a church. Memories of the Diaspora and pogroms and massacres and the Holocaust do not fade easily. He might be allowed in a mosque but only with the hope of converting him, and not for long.
  • He would also wonder who this namesake of his was, whose alleged birthday is celebrated by corporate America so eagerly. From September to January every year.
  • Once enlightened he would wonder what did Amazon and Apple and gas prices and NASDAQ have to do with him……

Cheers & Have a Merry One……
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Africa, Muslims, Sectarianism, Shi'as, Wahhabi

Muslims and the West: Nigeria’s Other Sectarian Terrorist Army……..

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Another mass atrocity was committed in Nigeria last week. But it did not get much world media coverage. No, it was not committed by Boko Haram gangs, but by the Nigerian Army. Hundreds of Muslim Shi’as were killed and wounded during a religious ceremony by the army. Two days later the Saudi King cabled the Nigerian regime expressing his support of its “war against terrorism”. Hard to believe the Wahhabi king was congratulating the Nigerian army on the massacre of civilians. So, it must have been a strange coincidence. Did I tell you I don’t believe in strange coincidences?

This no doubt means that the Wahhabi sectarian message has reached Nigeria in West Africa. That it is not only limited to bands of Salafi killers like the Boko Haram, but that it has infiltrated the corrupt and possibly Wahhabi-ized halls of government and army.

So, Wahhabis (who claim to be Muslims) are busy killing and massacring thousands of other Muslims in the Middle East and across the world. Wahhabis are also known to turn away other Muslims from mosques in Europe and America and to fight tooth and nail against the establishment of “other” mosques in Europe. Even as many Muslims demand understanding and equality in the West.
Shouldn’t the Muslim house be put in order first, before whining about the Western bigotry?
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Gulf states, Persian Gulf, Persian-American Gulf, Turkey, UAE

From Persian-American Gulf to Gulf of Mercenaries and the New Ottomans…….

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It is a problem, this faraway little Gulf of ours. A few years ago I modified its name, I started to call it the Persian-American Gulf, but it is getting harder. The population is shifting. The princes and potentates in their little kingdoms have now imported a majority of the non-Arabic and non-Persian speaking population from South and Southeast Asia and claim it should be called, no, not the Gulf of Bengal………..  Could it be the Gulf of Mercenaries, as I suggested a year or two ago? Gulf of Wahhabis, heaven forbid? How about the Gulf of Salaf? Gulf of Foreign Military Bases? Gulf of Tribal Sectarianism?

  • For example, the little oppressed repressed robbed sectarian island of Bahrain is now nearly sinking under foreign bases:
    U.S Naval Base Gulf HQ – Saudi Military Base post the Spring of 2011 invasion – Even the old British colonial masters have not stopped helping the ruling gangs in their robbery and repression. They are starting a new military base – Add to all that assorted imported mercenaries/interrogators and torturers from Jordan, Pakistan, Syria (former security), Iraq (former Baathists), among other foreign places. With an occasional obscure idle English prince and princess or two paying visits to shore up the kleptocratic autocratic outpost.
  • Little rich Wahhabi power Qatar where 90% of the population is temporary foreign laborers (mainly South Asian housemaids raising the kids and keeping house):
    U.S. Central Command has its regional headquarters at the Al-‘Adeed base – It is now also the Muslim Brotherhood HQ (outside Turkey) – Now reports say that Turkey, under its new Ottoman Caliph Sultan Recep Erdogan, will also establish a military base in Qatar. So, the Ottomans are coming back, with a new sultan. Which might indicate that the on-again-off-again sisterly relations with the fellow Saudi Wahhabis may be heading up the proverbial ‘unsanitary creek’.
  • United Arab Emirates (UAE, where some 90% of the population is composed of imported foreign laborers and housemaids), ruled by a Band of Brothers who own Abu Dhabi (lock, stock and barrel). I think it has:
    British base – French base – Canadian base (sorry, it was closed over a commercial dispute) – Colombian mercenary military base (no, not FARC) – (Former) Blackwater mercenary force: mainly South American, South African, Australian, etc- Actually I have lost track: for all I know even Monaco or Vanuatu may have military bases in Abu Dhabi by now.

But I don’t have anything against friendly military bases. They can be a protective measure that started with Saddam’s Baathist brutal invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But I suspect they are not only aimed against Iraqi dangers anymore, and not only aimed against the mullahs in Iran, but probably also needed not-so-secretly to keep the sisterly Wahhabi princes next door at home. The princes are only a few tanks’ drive away, as the unhappy people of Bahrain discovered in the Spring of 2011.

As well as the dangers that may emerge from the troubles in Iraq/Jordan/Syria. Dangers that were largely created and financed by wayward Persian Gulf Islamist groups and some princes. As well as some unsettled tribal issues and risks that Gulf GCC states have experienced (attempted Saudi-backed coup in Qatar in 1998) and others may be experiencing.

Still, a Turkish military base in Qatar? But why not? After all there is a Saudi Wahhabi base in Bahrain. The Muslim Brotherhood Turkish base in Qatar could balance that.

But there is still the same nagging question that won’t go away for me: whoever the hell heard of a country welcoming a Turkish military base?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Caliphate, Flatulence, Jihadis, Saudi Arabia, Shi'as, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Politics

Republican Debate: Going Silly over Syria and the New Communist Crescent………

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So, Republican candidates met two nights ago for a debate. It was completely focused on foreign policy, and almost all of it on ISIS (DAESH), Syria, Iraq, and Muslim refugees. Oddly they ignored the huge gorilla that has been roaming within the American room for many years:

  • In 1993, Wahhabi terrorists tried to blow up one of the World Trade Center Towers in New York.
  • Then they blew up the U.S. embassy in Tanzania, killing and wounding .
  • In the fall of 2000 the Wahhabi terrorists attacked the USS Cole in a Yemeni port, killing and wounding .
  • In Sept. 2001, the Wahhabi Mother of All Terror Attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon killed almost three thousand Americans.
  • Then came the attacks in Madrid, London, Bali, and Paris. Then the attacks in Kenya.
  • Then they attacked in West Africa, Libya, and Egypt (The Russian Airliner), and inside Russian cities.
  • Then the Wahhabi attacks on Shi’a mosques in Kuwait in 2015.
    And the suicide attacks across Iraq since 2003. And the sectarian attacks on non-Wahhabi worshipers in Pakistan.
  • And the beheadings and burnings and mass killings of people of other faith in Syria and Iraq, those who are Shi’as, Alawites, Yazidis, Christians, etc.
  • And the attacks in Boston and San Bernardino (2015).
  • All driven by Wahhabi ideology and by Wahhabi volunteers and Gulf Salafi money.

So the Republicans met in Las Vegas and talked about what?
How better to ally the USA with the repressive tribal Wahhabi powers that theorized for and (still) finance and arm and man the terrorist groups. And the Turkish Caliph Erdogan who opened his borders to allow the Jihadists and their weapons to get into Syria.  A couple of them bandied about something called “a Shi’a Crescent” that the silly humorless King of Jordan and the Wahhabi media have publicized, just to divert attention. You’d think Joe Stalin was back and eyeing the Middle East. The famously one-dimensional Senator Graham tried to out-Wahhabi the real true-blue Saudi and Qatari Wahhabis by demanding a re-invasion of Iraq.

Oh, and several of the Republican military service-evaders also promised to shoot down Russian planes over Syria, whether the Syrian people want them to shoot Russian planes over ‘their’ country or not. Whether the UN sanctions it or not.

A couple of them were more sensible, but the trend was toward showing ersatz muscularity and toughness overseas. At least over a Las Vegas microphone.

One saving grace: unlike the GOP debates of 2012, they did not all publicly and verbally kiss the posterior of Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu. In fact none of them did, except in denouncing the ‘international’ nuclear deal.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Mercenaries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen

Yemen: a Genocidal War of Clashing Foreign Mercenaries…….

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Some Gulf states have hit on a new ingenious technique to compete with more powerful neighbors like Iran, Turkey, and Israel. They have sought to expand their sphere of influence through a combination of financial inducements and the hiring of foreign mercenaries to act like national armies. All of it allegedly hush-hush, but not enough hush-hush on the Gulf. State secrets on the Persian Gulf last about as long as they would in a cathouse (a k a a brothel for the, er, uninitiated). But that is okay: everybody is involved in Arab civil wars these days, from Russians to Americans and Iranians and Turks and Lebanese and Chechens and Euros. Among others.

The United Arab Emirates, UAE, with a small native population of nearly a million have been actively hiring foreign mercenaries. They have been especially hiring Colombian fighters, so many officers at high pay, creating a shortage in the Colombian military. Some reports have also come out of Mexicans. As early as the Arab Uprisings of 2011, Abu Dhabi formed a mercenary brigade organized by former Blackwater executives, and composed of Latin Americans, Australians and white South Africans, among others.

The Saudi population is about one third temporary foreign laborers (housemaids, drivers, etc). The native population is not interested in fighting a foreign war or any war, except for the many who volunteer with terrorist Wahhabi groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS.  So the princes have sought a different kind of mercenary force. They have bought off the dictator of Sudan, the convicted war criminal General Omar Al Bashir. He has rented off thousands of his forces to the Saudis in their war on Yemen. There is the possibility of Mauritanian and other African mercenaries, including Djibouti (both members of the Arab League). Jordanian mercenaries are almost certainly involved as well, as they almost always are in these cases (in Bahrain, as one example). Pakistan, which has about 35+ million Shi’as, has declined for its army to be hired off, and Egypt has been stonewalling.

The deposed Yemeni regime of General Hadi (Al Zombie) has been allied with the corrupt Islah (mainly Muslim Brotherhood) group. Now the Saudis are moving closer to the MB with whom they had good relations in past decades that had soured, while the UAE rulers see the MB as Enemy Number One. Hence a divergence of opinion and policy among allies in the quagmire that is Yemen.

Both countries have been bombing Yemeni cities for months, essentially committing genocide, with logistical and targeting help from the United States government and possibly other Western powers. Reports indicate that the UAE is moving away from the Saudis, especially in Yemen which lies almost between the two countries. The Abu Dhabi potentates are reportedly sending their own mercenaries to southern Yemen. They are also inviting former South Yemen (PDRY) Marxist leaders to the UAE for consultation. Since the Emirati sheikhs are unlikely to have gone Marxist, I assume they are making some other deal.

So, the real war is not between just two Yemeni sides. It is between the Saudis and Emiratis and Qataris and Colombians and Americans and Mexicans and Sudanese and Jordanians and Al Qaeda (AQAP) and ISIS and Hirak secessionists and aging Aden Marxists. Meanwhile the genocidal air war by the bought and hired Arab and African alliance is pushing Yemen back about sixty or so years.

Stay tuned………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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