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
Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Jihadis, Syria, Turkey

Erdogan Torn Between ISIS and the Kurds………..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Recalling the deaths of thousands of men and boys at the Bosnian town of Srebrenica nearly two decades ago, the United Nations’ special envoy on Syria pleaded Friday for Turkey to open its border and let Kurdish fighters stream into Syria to help fight off an Islamic State advance on the Kurdish city of Kobani………….”

Mr. Erdogan has been allowing any and all Wahhabi Jihadis from all over the world to enter Syria from his domain in Turkey. Plus allowing passage through Turkey of all the weapons and money they could get from their Saudi and Persian Gulf supporters. He has been an accessory in the terrorists violating Syrian (and Iraqi) sovereignty for years. The least he can do now is allow the Kurds to cross into Syria to help against the ISIS terrorists. That may only partially atone for his collusion (or miscalculation) in the growth and expansion of this bloody Hollywood Caliphate.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

CIA, Cyber Security, Espionage, U.S. Politics

A Tale of Two Whistleblowers: From Snowden to Panetta, How to Do It Right……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Interesting the reactions of the political elites, classes, and opinion-ators in the United States to two different famous whistleblowers:

  • Edward Snowden was a young techie contracted by the NSA to handle secret data and information.
  • Leon Panetta is a former Democrat Congressman, former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton, former head of the CIA, and former Secretary of Defense. Former jack of all trades in the Democratic Party.
  • Both men had access to top secret information. Panetta also had access to detailed ‘elite’ information and insight about the inner workings of the intelligence and national security apparatus.
  • Edward Snowden was  a mere grunt. He swore an oath to keep the information he handled secret. Being young and not glib with no access to high-powered legal counsel, he leaked the shocking information he had access to. Technically he broke the law, no doubt. Morally, many people believe he did his countrymen a great service and opened millions of eyes (he did open millions of eyes for sure). Either way, he did a version of “kiss and tell”, although unlike Panetta he did not do the kissing. So far all Snowden has gotten from his disclosure and flight is grief and exile.
  • Leon Panetta, the more mature more glib man, waited until he left office, then he struck: he published a book and hit the TV trail. No doubt some of his accommodating former colleagues have approved his book. He is pushing his book all over the media, hoping to make a small fortune from it. I have not read the book, but reportedly he talks critically of American policy in Iraq and Syria. He is divulging information and insight he had heard and read during National Security sessions to make his political points. He is also doing a “kiss and tell”.
  • Snowden was not involved in politics, as far as I know. Panetta is suspected by at least one person of being a Clinton partisan and of awaiting the restoration of Hillary to the White House. Someone wrote recently that he is trying to rewrite history.
  • Oh, I left out that other confidante of presidents, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his “kiss and tell” book.
  • So the moral is? If you want to blow the whistle on your employer, make sure you rise high enough within the hierarchy, then quit and do it.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Economics, OPEC, Petroleum, Sanctions, U.S. Foreign Policy

Remember When the Oil Weapon Was Blackmail and Evil?……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Now time has abruptly run out. The Arabs, who control nearly 60% of the world’s proven deposits, are slowing down the flow. Through this strategy of squeeze, they hope to pressure the industrial nations into forcing Israel to make peace on terms favorable to the Arabs. Moreover, they are steadily intensifying their oil shakedown. Originally they planned to reduce production by at least 5% each month. Later they embargoed all oil shipments to the U.S. and The Netherlands, in punishment for their support of Israel. Last week, showing new unity and clout, ten Arab countries announced that production for November will be slashed a minimum of 25% below the September total of 20.5 million bbl. per day. Though there has been promising progress toward a lasting settlement in the Middle East, the Arabs vow that they will continue their cutbacks and embargoes until Israel withdraws behind its 1967 borders………….”

That was during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. The Arabs, at least the regimes and media, still claim that war was won. Initially the first round of the “Ramadan War” was won, but the military tide had turned decisively before the ceasefire that was engineered by the Nixon administration. But official celebrations and/or commemorations are held in Egypt every year on this occasion, sometime twice a year: once in October and again during the Islamic Hijri month of Ramadan (usually the two don’t coincide, although they did in 1973).
That Arab oil embargo of 1973 was widely denounced as blackmail and evil in Europe and North America. Looking back, the Arabs got a bum rap on that one: it is not the act of blackmail itself, but who does it that makes the difference. Something must have happened since then. Now it is the Western powers that impose oil and gas embargoes: against Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq (in the past) and others who do not comply. Countries that break any Western embargo or blockade are punished, and embargoed themselves. And it is not blackmail anymore: it is cool now. It is considered as part of a wise clever strategy to “shake down” other countries, just as the Arabs were perceived as “shaking down” the West in 1973. The only difference is that the Western powers have the upper hand now, economically speaking. The shoe is on the other foot. Speaking of change………..
Not all blackmails, or shakedowns, are equal.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Asia, Communism, Corruption, North Korea

Cute Leader and Waldo: Kim Jong Un Goes AWOL……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“Have you heard? Kim Jong Un is missing. Which can only mean one thing: He has been overthrown! His little sister, Kim Yo Jong, now runs the showin the most isolated nation on Earth. Or is it that the entire Kim dynasty, steward of North Korea for decades, is now out? It was a coup! The North Korean grand poobah finally got too big for his britches, what with ordering men to mimic his haircut and feeding his uncle to wild dogs, and was deposed. Boom. Wait a minute. Kim Jong Un is sick! It’s true, he has been “getting fatter lately”…………….”

Of all this speculation one thing is true for certain: Un has been getting fatter in recent months. Or maybe I should say “he HAD been getting fatter”. The Cute Leader probably easily outweighs (outweighed?) his father and grandfather, the Great Leader and the Dear Leader, combined. I doubt that even Dennis Rodman knows anything about his whereabouts. Certainly South Korean media rumor-mongers don’t know jack about this.

Once some years ago when Osama Bin Laden went AWOL I speculated that he could be in Las Vegas, dealing or just hitting the tables. Un could be in Macao right now, living it up within a different life-style, with pierced lips and nose and eyebrows. I shall not speculate about other possible pierced, er, extremities.

It is not too far-fetched to expect that a socialist revolution in Pyongyang may have overthrown him. It happens all the time to absolute ruling dynasties. Think Charles I, Louis XVI, Nicholas II, Shakhbout I, Saud I, Haile Selassie, the Pahlavis, among others. Some North Korean generals and functionaries may have gone back to Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and discovered that these dead Communist worthies never advocated or started absolute hereditary family dynasties. Nor were they fond of exotic expensive imported Swiss cheese.
Or maybe he has discreetly sought asylum with another notorious absolute ruling dynasty: the Al Saud. Un could be ensconced in a secluded villa in Jeddah, across the road from some other former Arab or African despots.
Maybe in Pyongyang the jig is finally up.

Or, Un could be in seclusion, playing Halo with Waldo. He could be laughing his head off at the frantic search mounted by the international media. The Cute Leader may be a prankster at heart.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Revolutions, France, GCC, NATO, Syria, US Foreign Policy

France Joins McCain and Arab Qumquats: Libyan Strategy to be used in Syria……..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“(French President Francois Hollande backed the idea following a telephone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier in the day. “(The president) insisted on the need to avoid massacres in the north of Syria. He gave his support to the idea proposed by President Erdogan to create a buffer zone between Syria and Turkey to host and protect displaced people,” read a statement from Hollande’s office. It added that the two countries also agreed on the need to give more support to the moderate Syrian opposition to fight Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic State group (IS), also known as ISIS or ISIL………………”

Remember that old song that goes “A Fool Never Learns…….“?
NATO created such a bloody Jihadi mess in Libya, while abusing a loophole in the UN Security Council resolution about that country in 2011. Libya is out of the clutches of the Gaddafi police state, but it is now a divided excuse for a country with multiple little civil wars, complete with various Wahhabi Jihadi cutthroats vying for power. Courtesy of France and other NATO powers and the ruling brothers of the United Arab Emirates of Disneyland (UAE) and the Qumquats of Qatar. What can you expect when you invite absolute tribal ruling families to help “liberate” a country and bring it the freedom and democracy that they never allow within their domains?
Now the Arab potentates and their eager Western arms merchants want a repeat in Syria. Only a bloodier and messier one and in the heart of the more vital Eastern Mediterranean. A no-fly zone that will almost certainly be expanded and used to favor the “moderate Wahhabis” among the Syrian opposition. Which is why it will never pass a United Nations smell test, a vote: it will have to be unilateral NATO action with some trumped-up foreign Arabs for window-dressing.
FYI: effectively there are now only three classes of Syrian opposition: bad plain-vanilla Wahhabis, badder Wahhabis, and the baddest (truly murderous) Wahhabis. Remember the Hobson’s Choice analogy.

Brilliant, Francois, you deserve to be up there with Sarkozy and Hillary and Blair and McCain and the oil princes. I would have thought you were concerned about the new crop of Beaujolais Nouveau arriving next month more than about Gulf royal weapons contracts.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Bahrain, Culture, Persian Gulf

Pictorial Bahrain Security Summit: The King and Jacko………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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BahrainJacko
I found this archival photo of a summit held a few years ago between the late Michael Jackson and His Majesty the King of Bahrain in Manama. That was before that city became known as the “Arab capital of tear gas“. The topic of the summit was allegedly focused on Persian Gulf Security situation and how to improve it.

The picture below is reportedly of Jacko arriving for the Summit disguised as an ISIS groupie. Here he is shaking hands with one of the many loyal trusted foreign mercenaries imported from…….. somewhere else. The alert-looking guy with shifty eyes in the middle is also another imported mercenary: he is either a body guard or a foreign policy adviser to the government. Perhaps he doubles as both.
BahrainJacko2

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Cinema, Finance, GCC, History, New York, Waldorf Astoria

From Beijing and the Gulf to Manhattan and Paris and Rocky Mountains: Look Who is Coming………

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Agence France-Presse and other agencies reported this morning that Hilton Hotels is selling sells the Waldorf Astoria to a Chinese firm for $1.95 bn. It took a (proverbial? cliche?) few seconds to register, but the Waldorf? I mean you can’t get any more historical American than John Jacob Astor and the mountain men and the Fur Trade. Who would have thunk only a few years ago that the venerable (that is what they call them now) Manhattan institution will be sold to a bunch of Chinese oligarchs and People’s Liberation Army functionaries.

Then only a couple of years ago reports came out of some Saudi prince buying the Le Crillon in Paris. I had stayed there once for three days, and of course I did not pay for it: it was a paid official business trip, otherwise I could not have afforded it. Then the Qataris have been buying other Paris properties even before they were admitted into the Francophone countries (about two or three Qataris probably speak French but money makes up for any deficiency).

Not to be outdone, the Emirati (UAE) potentates have been buying British sports clubs and any horses and mules and stables that are for sale across England. Come to think of it, Abu Dhabi has been buying almost anything else that is English and for sale (be it nailed or not). Even the upstart robber shaikhs of Bahrain have been known to use their ill-gotten loot to dabble in British properties.

All this is against the trend in the past couple of decades. Even the Mafia’s hold on Las Vegas gambling has faded in recent years, or so the reports say. At least since Francis Ford Coppola wisely gave up on a fourth sequel of the Corleone saga (the third one stank to Sicily and back).

Speaking of oligarchies and potentates and globalization. How come the Russians and their fabled petroleum and gas oligarchs have not been snapping up Western hotels and sports clubs and horses and department stores? Could it be that they knew ‘the sanctions’ were coming?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, Syria, Turkey, US Foreign Policy

Joe Biden on the Erdogan and Wahhabi Trails: With Allies Like These……….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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““My constant cry was that our biggest problem is our allies — our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria,” Biden told his listeners in remarks subsequently posted on the White House YouTube channel (go to 1:32:00 if you want to skip the earlier speech). “The Turks were great friends,” he notes, adding that he recently spent considerable time with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and they have “a great relationship.” Ditto the Saudis and the Emiratis. But when it came to Syria and the effort to bring down President Bashar Assad there, those allies’ policies wound up helping to arm and build allies of al Qaeda and eventually the terrorist “Islamic State.”…………”

Joe Biden was right of course. There are facts that I and many others have been pointing out for three years. As soon as that first Syrian uprising started against the Al Assad regime in 2011, the Wahhabi and Muslim Brotherhood money, weapons and intolerant ideology started flowing in to Syria. Soon, bored and indoctrinated young Wahhabi Jihadis started flowing into Syria from the Persian Gulf region. That early Syrian uprising was lost to the newly-imported sectarian narrative.

The absolute tribal princes and potentates from Riyadhh and Doha and Abu Dhabi did not see a people’s uprising in Syria, even though their vast media claimed that they did. For obvious reasons these rulers are not into into liberation movements. They just saw an opportunity to finally gain a foothold in Syria, spread their Wahhabi ideology, and give the annoying Iranian mullahs a black eye. Not necessarily in that order.

In other words, they have sought to buy Syria and its people with petroleum money. Just as they are seeking to buy American and other Western foreign policy regarding the Arab uprisings from Egypt to Bahrain to Syria to Yemen. With some significant success.

The Turks did their part for ‘the cause’: as I have opined before, the Erdogan regime never saw a Jihadi terrorist that they could turn back from entering Syria (and hence Iraq). Money, weapons, and volunteers from the Arab world and Europe continued to flow into the civil war through what I called the Erdogan Trail.

Joe Biden was right: with allies like these…………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Yemen

From Yemen to Somalia: Failed Arab States and the Sectarian Tribal Narrative…….

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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“The capital of Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest and perhaps most chronically unstable nation, has new masters. Anti-American Shiite rebels man checkpoints and roam the streets in pickups mounted with anti-aircraft guns. The fighters control almost all state buildings, from the airport and the central bank to the Defense Ministry. Only a few police officers and soldiers are left on the streets……….”

This title of “Arab world’s poorest and perhaps most chronically unstable nation” is debatable. The Arab world includes other candidates for this honor that are also members of the Arab League: Somalia, Mauretania, Sudan, Djibouti, the Comoros. So, there are several candidates for this honorary title. And if the unrest and war and mayhem continue to spread, several more Arab states may also join the competition. Libya, liberated by NATO and Bernard-Henri Levy and John McCain in 2011, may be well on its own merry way toward that list.
This piece looks like it could have been edited by Saudi and UAE censors before its final version was approved. I like the part about “Anti-American Shiite rebels“: a cute but useful touch. They tend to use the “sectarian” angle whenever they can, these Persian Gulf princes and potentates. I am not sure the Houthis actually think of imitating Hezbollah, they have their own very complex Yemeni issues to deal with. The sectarian narrative is not as powerful or clear-cut in Yemen as it is in Lebanon and Iraq and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, for example. It is complicated by tribal and regional issues. And they don’t have the Israeli military on their border as a further distraction.
But I can see the temptation, at least from a Western point of view, to simply declare them the “new Hezbollah”. One size fits all: it is simpler that way.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Humor, Israel, nuclear Iran, POTUS

Mutually Painful Visits: Nuclear Humor and the Annual Likud Finger in Obama’s Eye………..

_9OJik4N_normal Sharqeya-Baneen-15    DennyCreek2

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Ref. my post yesterday about Netanyahu poking, yet again, another finger into President Obama’s eye even as he visits with him. Doing it again to the man who, probably correctly, called him ‘a liar’ into an open microphone a couple of years ago. That finger in the eye was, yet again, the announcement of another settlement construction while the Israeli potentate visits Washington (or while American officials visit Israel). It always happens around these mutually painful friendly visits: like the proverbial clockwork. You can take it to the bank, if you are the type that for some perverse weird reason actually trusts and likes his/her banker.

Back to the usual whining about the Iranian “nuclear threat”. Unlike the Iranians, Netanyahu has never said he doesn’t want nuclear weapons; he has never sworn not to pursue them. You know why? Because he has no sense of humor. He is so humorless you’d think he is Jordanian, not Jewish. But I forget: Israelis of all faiths are almost as humorless as the neighbors surrounding them. Could be something to do with the current neighborhood and perhaps with the earlier also humor-challenged Slavic neighbors.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com