Category Archives: Arab Counterrevoltion

Arab Counterrevoltion

Women in the New Libya on a Salafi Brink……

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      BFF

“Libya’s top leader Mustafa Adbdel Jalil surprised international observers on Sunday with the declaration that his newly-liberated country would impose new laws that adhered to Islam.”We are an Islamic state,” said Jalil, the head of the Transitional National Council, at Keish square in Benghazi, where tens of thousands of Libyans gathered. Jalil doesn’t have the ability to implement before elections are held next June, but aspects of Sharia Law seem to hold symbolic importance as Libya moves toward democracy after over four decades under Muammar Qaddafi. The speculation was based on two specific policy reforms Jalil called for:……….. Marriage According to Reuters, Jalil said “We as a Muslim nation have taken Islamic sharia as the source of legislation, therefore any law that contradicts the principles of Islam is legally nullified.” This includes changing marriage laws to allow men to more easily take on a second wife reports the The Seattle Times staff from Benghazi. Farage Sayeh, the minister of capacity-building said “A lot of young ladies lost their husbands in the battle,” noting that they desired new partners. As it stands, a Libyan man must get his wife’s permission in front of a judge to take on a new wife………….”

The Libyan marriage law will go back to the way it was under that old monarchy which was considered enlightened because it allowed Western military bases. The law will be aligned with the Salafi marriage laws in many other Arab states. More clearly, it will be aligned with the marriage laws in places like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and Afghanistan (before, during, and after the Taliban). Before laws there will be amendments to the law, allowing Sfundamentalist-style multiple marriage arrangements: part-time, summer vacation time, etc.
No wonder Senators McCain and Lieberman have lost interest in emigrating to Libya and now seek a NATO invasion of Syria.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Human Right, Libya

Colonel Gaddafi: the Libyan iPhone, the Arab iPad……..

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      BFF

News networks have been showing us macabre scenes of thousands of Libyans lining up, in long snaking lines, to see the mutilated body of their former dictator Colonel Qaddafi. Reminds me of the long lines of thousands of people in the United States of Europe who wait in line on the day a new iPhone or iPad comes out. No reports if any Libyans camped out overnight near the frozen food storage facility to be the first to see th  Islamistseir erstwhile leader. Meanwhile, the family of Mu’ammar Qaddafi have asked for his body, something they should be granted. Islam requires respect for the body of the dead, not mutilation and public exposure.
Meanwhile the Libyan people are waiting for their next leader(s): be they democrats, kleptocrats, or Islamists. Possibly a mix of all of the above with less of the ‘democrats’ and more of the kleptocrats and fundamentalists, if the ruling Arab potentates have anything to do with it. And the ruling Arab absolute monarchs are set to have a big say in what kind of government the Libyans will have: not a good start.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Libya

Hypocrisy on my Gulf: Iraq vs. Libya vs. Syria vs. Bahrain vs.………….

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The hypocrisy of some Arab opinion-ators, quasi-intellectuals, and faux-liberals (both the Wahhabi and non-Wahhabi variety) has been breathtaking. This is especially true in the Gulf region where many take their cue and their orders from absolute monarchies. Just look at how they treat events in the Arab Spring these days, and go back a few years.

  • Most Arab states ‘of the east’, and all the GCC Gulf states, supported the American-British invasion of Iraq in 2003. In fact they actively supported it (I supported it inactively at the time). Yet as soon as the “wrong” kind of regime emerged in Baghdad, they all turned against it, calling them “puppets”. Admittedly they are now too fundamentalist in Iraq for my taste, but then our whole region is heading that way, if only temporarily. They certainly are not nearly as sectarian or as fundamentalist in Iraq as they are in Saudi Arabia (almost nobody in the world is). Most Arab so-called ‘intellectuals’ and opinion makers still claim to be sour about Iraq, but they are not sour on their own governments for enabling it. But then we all wish sectarianism would just vanish. (Warning: maybe I’ll start my own ‘sect’ and have everyone else join me. I promise that I’ll not use witchcraft. Sorcery and magic will be seriously frowned upon).

  • Now to Libya. Many, possibly most, of the very same Arab opinion-ators were eager for the West, for NATO, to intervene in Libya. Their concern was admirable: to save Libyan civilians from the dictator and his henchmen. Yet Saddam had killed many more Iraqis, and others, during his rule than Qaddafi, than anyone else in modern Arab history. They accepted (actually pushed for it) American, British, and French forces to fight against Qaddafi even as they complained about American and British forces intervening in Iraq.
  • The hypocrisy is not confined to one party or one sect. It works for all sides. Some who are against the Syrian uprising strongly support the Bahrain uprising. Some who are strongly against the Bahrain uprising strongly support the Syrian uprising.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia

The Coming Wars of Saudi Succession?………

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     BFF
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz died Friday at an age of between 86-90. That leaves Prince Nayef Bin Abdulaziz as the next in line for the throne, if he makes it (he is up there in the 80s). Probably Prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz, Prince of Mecca and owner of the daily Asharq Alawsat newspaper, will be next in line. I have written a few times here on the issue of Saudi succession, especially last July when the king put one of his sons in position to inherit the foreign ministry:

“…….. All this is
part of maneuverings by various branches of the vast Al-Saud clan to
position themselves for the coming death of the sons of old king
Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud). Besides the various ministries, the senior princes
have also staked out the various provinces as their personal fiefdoms.
This province system also creates the potential for an eventual “soft”
division of the country among the various branches (fukhooth “legs” and butoon
“bellies”) of the al-Saud clan. Even the armed forces, the
traditionally unified force within the Arab states, are divided into
spheres of princely influence. The Saudi system of power transfer is
inherently unstable, and is likely to become more so. The “commission of
allegiance” (Bay’a) that was supposed to select the rulers
reflects the rivalries within the family, which means it is as unstable
as the family relations and rivalries. Once the last of the Ibn Saud
sons passes away, there will be a political bloodbath (not necessarily a
real red bloodbath) over control of the Kingdom without magic and its
resources. The country may resemble China in the era of the warlords
more than a hundred years ago: it certainly has the potential for such a political fragmentation.………“

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Libya, Religion, Salafi

MTV Shaikhs of Salafi Islam: Have Fatwa, Will Travel……………

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      BFF

This idiotic shaikh from my hometown here tells his listeners that Qaddafi was not a Muslim and that it is not allowed to pray over him. No R.I.P. for him. Too many of these idiotic Salafi television shaikhs giving fatwas on everything. I call them MTV shaikhs, some call them mercenary shaikhs, others call them opportunistic shaikhs on the make. They are all of the above. They are the products of all these Shari’a colleges on the Gulf, and in Saudi Arabia, that spawn thousands of semi-educated would be clergy. They get competitive, and the only way to compete for a Salafi shaikh is to issue his own fatwas on everything under the sun.
They ought to be licensed (and preferably immunized and leashed), if you know what I mean.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right, Salafi, Torture, US Foreign Policy

In the Shadow of the Fifth Fleet: “five months in custody, enduring beatings, torture, sexual assault and threats of rape……..”

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“When a Bahraini hospital started to take in casualties from the violent crackdown on protesters earlier this year, Rula al-Saffar was one of the first to volunteer. As a medical professor and president of the Bahraini Nursing Society, she was not on the staff of the overwhelmed Salmaniya hospital, but doctors needed all the help they could get. Saffar could not have known at the time that in stepping in to help save lives she was endangering her own. Within weeks she would be arrested, charged, convicted in a trial lasting minutes and sentenced to 15 years in prison, along with 19 other hospital medics………. Saffar was arrested on 4 April after receiving a late-night phone call ordering her to present herself to Bahrain’s Central Investigation Department for interrogation. “The minute I entered they just closed the gate, and suddenly I was blindfolded, handcuffed and started being pushed and cussed at the whole time. “I never knew why was I there. And then this woman started shouting at me, that you hate the system, that you were a protester against the system, against the king. “I kept saying: ‘No, this is not what happened,’ and of course the minute you say no they beat you up and they electrocute you … And I thought: ‘How dare you do this?’ Interrogation … as you see in a democratic country, I thought my country had the same thing, where you have a right for your lawyer, they read your warrant. But this is not what happened to us.” Saffar spent five months in custody, enduring beatings, torture, sexual assault and threats of rape… ……”

Yes sir, those mercenary interrogators from Pakistan and Jordan are sure earning their pay. As do the local thugs of the regime. That must be what the billion-dollar a year GCC aid was intended for. I wonder if they had some of those Salafi shaikhs they have in their pockets sanction such behavior as kosher, in a Salafi Islamic sense. For a price, of course. As for our Wahhabi faux-liberals on our Gulf, many of them think it is alright, as long as the Salafi shaikhs say so. In the shadow of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Libya, NATO, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

New Libya: One Last Questionable Atrocity or Two, Saddam and Muammar………

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I watched the grisly, nay ugly, savagery in the footage of Mu’ammar Qaddafi in captivity: at first wounded but very much alive, then dead naked and being dragged about. There is no way he was shot while trying to escape, but that is alright now, everyone wants the new Libya to start with a ‘clean’ slate. Nobody wants the new Libya to start with the usual extra-judicial atrocities that the old dictatorship committed.
Which brings me to the new ‘regime’, which will be what it is until a ‘proper’ government is elected by the people. That is why most Arab regimes are ‘regimes’: unelected, possibly unelectable, and I don’t mean just the republics. Now this killing of Qaddafi also helps the National Transitional Council clean its own slate, given that many of its members served in high positions under Colonel Qaddafi. It saves a lot of embarrassing and inconvenient court testimony by Qaddafi and his lawyers and witnesses. A lot of local names to be talked about: who did what under Qaddafi. With the dictator dead, there is no need to embarrass anyone. Then there is no need to embarrass Western leaders who dealt with the dictator and helped him, for a price of course. (I wonder what Berlusconi and Sarkozy and Tony Blair and many others feel now).
Saddam Hussein was tried for three years before being executed. (I recall the media in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain thought that was extra-legal, as if their own regimes care much for legal niceties: in both these countries people vanish without legal niceties, sometimes forever). But then the new Iraqi government was mostly composed of former exiles and not composed of his former officials. Nobody to embarrass with court testimony.
Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Iran

The Marshal and the Ayatollah : What Went Wrong in Egypt………….

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“The scene in Egypt looks grim. More than eight months have passed since Jan. 25, when the sparks of revolution finally brought Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule to an end. Yet we have witnessed no real policy changes from the provisional Military Council. The postrevolution era is marked by as much—if not more—brutality as faced the Egyptians during Mubarak’s reign as witnessed by the dozens of Copts killed in recent clashes. The censorship of journalists, bloggers, newspapers, and other publications continues. It seems that the confiscation of journalistic work has become a defining characteristic of the postrevolution era. Worse, nothing suggests that the Military Council will surrender its authority to an elected civilian president in the near future, despite their statements to the contrary. An addiciton to power has taken hold, especially in the mind of Marshal Tantawi………..”

Just as I wrote here: the military will be the supreme power, with some elected politicians suffocating underneath it. Just like in Iran where elected politicians are subservient to an unelected leader. Ayatollah Tantawi, meet Marshal Khamenei.
What went wrong in Egypt is simple. The people did not finish up the ‘revolution’. They kept the old regime intact except for the top two or three men. Lenin had it right in 1917, at the beginning, by insisting on a complete overthrow of the old order, as did the Iranian Ayatollah in 1979, as did Castro in 1959. Unfortunately those three old revolutionaries failed to create free societies: they got rid of their ‘democratic’ partners and replaced the bad old orders with bad new dictatorships.
Now the military junta is set to share power in Egypt: it is the Egyptian version of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). They will share power, but they will be first among ‘equals’, at best. This suits the Arab oligarchs fine, they are sighing with relief: the SCAF is now using the same divisive sectarian tactics (vis-a-vis the Christian Copts) that are used by the Saudi and Bahraini regimes in the Gulf. But the brave Egyptian people need to make another final push to be rid of the military junta.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Religion, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Al-Azhar and the Salafis: a Relic of the Mubarak Days and the Evangelical Al, Abdel Wahab………

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The semi-official Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat reports that Ahmad al-Tayeb, the Shaikh of al-Azhar and a former functionary of Mubarak’s ruling party, has met with the Saudi Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Cairo. The newspaper headlines that the two have reached an agreement to stand firm in the face of any attempts to “touch (or is it fondle) Sunni  societies”, a blatant sectarian statement if there ever was one. They did not specify who or what was threatening to touch “Sunni societies”, no reference was made to Hip-Hop, Rap, or Angry Bird. I know the Saudi muftis frown upon Barbie and Sponge Bob. An official invitation for Egypt to join the GCC will not be far now, unless the Egyptian ‘uprising’ becomes a true ‘revolution’ that sweeps away military rule.

Mr. al-Tayeb was appointed by former dictator Hosni Mubarak from among his ruling party functionaries, whereby he promptly dropped the civilian suit for a cleric’s robe (not thobe). The Saudi Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs is yet another Al Al Shaikh, this time Abdulaziz Al Al Shaikh. Readers of my blog know by now that there are many Al Al Shaikh in top Saudi government positions, including ministers, the chief Mufti, and the chief justice. My readers also know by now that all the Al Al Shaikhs are descendants of Imam Mohammad Bin Abdulwahhab, after whom the Wahhabi sect was named. The Imam Abdulwahhab was a close ally of the Al Saud from way back in the days before the early Old West. The two clans have intermarried over generations (but it is usually a one-way traffic if you know what I mean).
 
The Salafi Imam Abdulwahhab is not to be confused with the late great Egyptian musician and singer Mohammed Abdel Wahab who was never a Salafi or a fundamentalist. Not even an Evangelical nor one of the Hasidim.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Libya, Middle East

Unfinished Libyan Gunfight at the OK Corral………….

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“The scrublands that surround Moammar Kadafi’s hometown have become a confused patchwork of loyalties. As vehicles of the revolutionary forces patrolled the dusty villages in newly seized territory Sunday, many residents peered angrily from their homes. “The rebels are worse than rats. NATO is the same as Osama bin Laden,” said a father, his seven children crowding around him. Surt has been a primary target in the seven-month NATO bombing campaign that helped rebel forces gain control of most of Libya. The intensity of the bombing, coupled with recent rocket attacks by the opposition forces, has turned Surt into a “living hell,” several families said. Hundreds of families fled the city Sunday, anticipating a new assault. But too frightened, angry or mistrustful to flee to opposition-controlled territory, many sought refuge in nearby loyalist homes……….”

The new Libyan rulers, or rather their NATO and other allies, have so far failed to dislodge the Qaddafi side from Sirte (or is it Surt) and Bani Walid. Apparently Bani Walid was a near disaster for the new Tripoli government. There are also other towns and villages and regions that are still contested in the vast Libyan desert. Neither Bani Walid nor Sirte have turned into the decisive OK Corral that the NTC and world media expected it to be. The Clantons are still fighting, the Earps are trying, and Doc Holiday NATO is getting frustrated.
Told ya: Arab dictators and depots, be they royal or military, are very hard to dislodge. Bin Ali and Mubarak were surprised by the speed of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, but the others were ready. From Libya to Syria to Yemen to Bahrain to Algeria, even to Saudi Arabia, the oligarchs were ready when the Arab Spring spread toward their neck of the woods.
Cheers
mhg


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