Category Archives: Arab Counterrevoltion

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Egypt, GCC, Gulf states, Human Right, Humor, Jordan, Libya, Persian-American Gulf

On Gulf Intellectuals, Tribal Liberals and Arab Uprisings, the Edifying Hashtag, Oxymoronic Humor………..

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      BFF

“What is interesting is that many (Gulf) clerics and shaikhs played the sectarian game, and did not try to distinguish the political issue from the sectarian issue. I was surprised at this huge amount of hatred among some of these people, and these hatreds were reflected in their positions and their statements and their relations with ‘others’. It is sad to say that the Arab Spring has deteriorated to civil war and strife in places like Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, and Syria……… Unfortunately the ‘intellectual’ in the Gulf region could not break away from what has been ordained for him, just as he can’t break away from his sector or tribe or personal interest. In Saudi Arabia, I have not seen any brave position from the Islamist or ‘liberal’ intellectuals regarding the events in Bahrain, these Islamist and ‘liberal’ intellectuals were open and shameful reflections of the mouthpieces of the regimes…………..”

Professor al-Rasheed is well-acquainted with the history and ‘cultural’ life, such as it is, of Saudi Arabia (especially) and the Gulf region. She is right about most of the GCC so-called ”intellectuals”:


  • Most Gulf Islamists, especially the Salafis, essentially nurse from the Saudi teats. Most of the time I suspect they are basically a ‘fifth column’ for the Wahhabi state, wittingly or unwittingly. (I do have moments when I feel more gracious toward them).

  • Many Gulf ‘intellectuals’, but not all, be they Islamist or otherwise, are palace ‘intellectuals’, sycophants of one faction or another of the palace. Often, they are sycophants of the Saudi palace, either directly or through the tribe or through other affiliations. I once called them “tribal liberals” last spring.

  • I suspect some Gulf intellectuals think they are “liberals” if they carry a laptop around, sprinkle their speech with a few English terms (they/we especially love the term “hashtag”, it is so edifying) and believe women should ‘eventually’ have the right to drive but in due time. All in due time. Let the princes decide: they know best.

  • All Gulf ‘intellectuals’, shy away from criticizing public beheadings in the streets of Riyadh, maybe because those who are beheaded are mostly poor foreign migrant workers (men and women), but most likely because they shy from upsetting the potentates.

  • Most, but not all, Gulf ‘intellectuals’ also believe that people in places like Syria and Libya should revolt against their oppressors but not people in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Yemen. They take their cue from their regimes, or from the Saudi regime.

  • Most Gulf ‘intellectuals’ were cool and tepid toward the uprisings in Tunisia and especially in Egypt, until the palace accepted the change. Then they were suddenly all for the people’s uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, after the fact.

  • Most Gulf ‘intellectuals’ were quiet about Syria, until the “palace” and princes started opining, and they all fell in line.

  • Most Gulf ‘intellectuals’ were always for the regime and against the people in Bahrain, because the “palace” was clearly on the side of the despots: it put troops on the ground to prove it. In this case, they are unfortunately divided by sector.
  • Most ‘intellectuals’ on my Gulf fiercely support the right of people to self determination and free elections in places like Iran, Syria, Libya, Gaza (but not the West Bank), but they don’t think any other peoples in the Middle East need to vote in free elections or talk freely against their rulers.

  • There are real free-thinking ‘intellectuals’ on my Gulf: I have known some of them and I read for some of them. And no, it is not an oxymoron to say ‘Gulf intellectual’, anymore than it is to say ‘Egyptian intellectual’ or ‘Jordanian intellectual’ or ‘Iranian intellectual’ or ‘French intellectual’. It is not even nearly as oxymoronic as saying “Jordanian humor”. More on this last point in another post.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Fear and Loathing…….

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      BFF
“THE SAUDI royal family is afraid. Very, very afraid. A crisis of leadership is brewing. The king is ailing and his successor, Crown Prince Sultan, is in even worse health. Their hard-line brother, Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, is set to take the throne. One of the last absolute monarchies, the Saudi family seems to represent all that the Arab Spring is fighting against: closed societies with unequal wealth distribution; repressed minorities living within manufactured boundaries; strong Islamist sympathies across its lands; a latent Sunni-Shia power struggle embedded in the country’s fabric—not to mention a string of surrounding states struggling to stave off revolutions that could easily have a contagion effect.
We should be careful not to count the al-Sauds out. They are among the world’s most proven survivors………………”
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Iran, Israel, Libya, nuclear Iran

Kim Jong Qaddafi, Kim Jong Iraq, Kim Jong Iran………

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      BFF

“Such sweet deals are no longer to be had in a world where all worker bees, even those wearing medals and epaulettes, with secret police at their disposal, get discarded like used tissue paper after their cost-benefit balance tips to the former. Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega languished in an American prison on trumped-up drug charges for 20 years before being extradited to France; Saddam got dropped down a trap door to the howling jeers of his rivals. One can easily imagine a call from North Korean tyrant Kim Jung-Il to Libya’s Colonel Gadhafi a few years back: “Don’t disarm, Muammar. Just you wait! The second you give up your nukes the Americans will take you out. Saddam disarmed in 1991; now he’s in a tacky grave in Tikrit. What did Milosevic get for attending the Dayton peace conference? A war crimes trial. Look at me. I don’t cooperate. I don’t give in. Sure, they hate me. But I’m holding tight. Living large. Cooperation with the Americans is a mug’s game!“…………..”

Raises a good point, n’est-ce pas. Saddam gave up his weapons of WMD, and where is he now? So did Qaddafi, and he is gone somewhere. Meanwhile Kim Jong-Il, Pakistan, Israel, India, etc have nuclear weapons and nobody is touching them. Is there a message in here somewhere for the Iranians?
(Okay, Israel doesn’t count here, since Israel is a “white” power).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Libya, North Africa

Return to Tobruk: Liberated Libya, Lucrative Libya………….

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“The German government made a Transall military transport plane available for the journey, and the mission was headed up by Hans-Joachim Otto, a state secretary in the German Economics Ministry. In Benghazi, where the rebel movement is headquartered, the group handed over aid goods and medical supplies to the city’s hospitals. But the trip was far from just a humanitarian one. The Germans also met with representatives of the Libyan transitional council and of the country’s central bank in an effort to pursue economic interests in the country. The war in Libya, of course, has not yet come to an end, and autocrat Moammar Gadhafi remains at large, likely hiding in a bunker somewhere in Tripoli. But companies from around the world, including several based in Germany, have already begun preparing for peacetime. Once reconstruction begins, business opportunities, they hope, will be plentiful — and lucrative…….. The Italian oil concern Eni, for example, is doing what it can to defend its status as the largest foreign oil producer in the country. Even before the rebels stormed the Gadhafi residence in Tripoli this week, Eni technicians had begun preparing to restart the flow of oil. And Eni has the full support of the government in Rome. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is meeting with rebel leader Mahmoud Jibril on Thursday. It is France, though, that could have the pole position when it comes to doing business with the new Libya…………….”

The Europeans lining up to get their “fair share” of the Libyan war booty. This time, not only are the Italians back, but the French as well, and the Germans, and others. Seventy years after World War II, European landmines are still killing Arabs (and Berbers) in North Africa. Now their forces are back, some of them disguised as Qataris and foreign residents of the UAE.

The fact that Libya needs “reconstruction” after only a few months of “low level” fighting indicates the dismal state of Qaddafi’s Great Libyan Socialist Jamahiriya. With huge oil reserves and revenues, and only about 5 million people, the dictator could not do even a mediocre job on the economy.
The carnage also indicates something else: the amount of destruction NATO forces have unleashed on Libya.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Human Right

On My Gulf: The King Giveth and the King Taketh Away……….

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      BFF
“The national dialogue did express support for a “fairer” electoral system but there are no plans to change constituency boundaries or other mechanisms that preserve Sunni control: one Shia constituency has 15 times as many voters as a small Sunni one – classic gerrymandering. No wonder critics were quick to dismiss the dialogue as a sham. “An exercise in make-believe,” is the blunt conclusion of a new report by the International Crisis Group. And the king, it seems likely, will continue to appoint the prime minister and rely on an unelected upper chamber of parliament to keep MPs in check and his own power untrammelled. And there is no sign that the government will halt its controversial policy of “political naturalisation” of non-Bahraini Sunnis – imported from Syria, Jordan, Yemen and even Pakistan – to fill the ranks of the security forces (from which Shias are largely excluded) – to tip the demographic balance………..”

Of course they will do what it takes. The rulers and their elite retainers and minions have a good thing going: they have their goose that lays the golden egg, at the expense of most of the people. The neighbors, the Al-Saud and Al-Nahayn of Abu Dhabi will not stand for anything resembling democracy in Bahrain. Not now that they have their armed forces in the place.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Human Right, Iraq, Syria

Syria Divided: Arab Spring, Arab Toothpaste………….

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“On one of the city’s main streets, families have still gathered every night on the sidewalks and in the medians for nighttime picnics. Vendors crowd around selling hookahs, popcorn, sandwiches and coffee. Traffic moves slowly as people park cars by the sidewalk and open doors and windows to let music stream out to entertain the crowds……. But Aleppo’s reluctance to join the revolution goes beyond any alleged cowardice. As a financially stable city, Aleppo was already less likely to revolt, and since the nationwide unrest erupted in mid-March, residents have by turns been made complacent by government enticements and scared by the overwhelming presence of security agents and spies. Whereas Damascus is the capital and administrative hub of Syria, Aleppo is the economic center where much of the money flows, said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian opposition activist and dissident in the United States. Many of the country’s factories, textile plants and pharmaceutical companies are in the city………….”

The regime in Syria, just like those in Libya and Yemen, just like all Arab regimes whether dictatorships or monarchies, clings to power. As a Ba’ath Party regime, it is more willing to kill its own people than say, even the Mubarak regime in Egypt. The Ba’ath Party has had a specially dark and bloody history, in both Iraq and Syria. It started as an imitator of Europe’s Fascist “Nationalist” parties, but later acquired socialists pretensions after the expansion of Soviet power. Yet it soon descended, especially in Iraq, to a basically tribal power center (tribal in the literal sense and in the broader sense of a clan or a sect). In that, the Ba’ath rule became no different from any dictatorship or absolute monarchy; only it was bloodier than both other cases because of the mutual mistrust with the people. Neither Nasser nor Sadat or Mubarak in Egypt were ever nearly as repressive as the Ba’ath, nor were most Arab monarchies with one exception (some would say two exceptions).
No doubt the Syrian toothpaste is out of the tube. Yet the shape of the future is unknown. Arab despots are very creative in bargaining with their people and clinging to their power under different, new, guises. And the outside world (especially the West) does not like any change not of its own making. That is why the overall verdict on the so-called Arab Spring is undecided, yet.
Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Arab Counterrevoltion, Israel, Saudi Arabia

Reverse Tea Party of Tel Aviv, the Cleric against the World Plot………..

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      BFF
Haaretz reports that about 300,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv, 20,000 participated in Jerusalem, 3,000 in Kiryat Shmona, 5,000 in Modi’in,1,000 in Hod Hasharon and 1,000 in Eilat. However, those close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the media had inflated the numbers of participants in the protests. Mr Netanyahu claimed that the numbers are vastly exaggerated, that perhaps only 290,000 were involved in Tel Aviv instead of 300,000. This is sort of a reverse Tea Party: in the United States it is noted that only the extreme right-wing can mobilize huge numbers these days, mostly from among the Tea Party foot soldiers (also known as political cannon fodder).
Now we await a new verdict from the Saudi clerics who earlier condemned Arab protests (outside Libya) as anti-Islamic. They did not specifically ban Jews from protesting. Yet they can use this as proof that world Jewry are behind the popular Arab uprisings against oppression and corruption of their rulers. Just as they used to advise that Communism (remember communism?) was part of a Jewish plot to misguide the faithful and take over the whole world.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Corruption, ethnic cleansing, Human Right

Photoshop of Facts in Bahrain: Where the Buck Does not Stop…………

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      BFF
““The situation has evolved because the king and certainly the crown prince are much more committed to the rule of law and human rights than other persons in the government and the Al-Khalifa clan,” he said in a phone interview late Thursday. “The mere fact that the king has appointed this commission and the Interior Ministry is cooperating shows me things have changed.” The investigation itself, he warned, cannot right relations between Bahrain’s rulers and its Shi’ite population, which says it is systematically denied access to land, housing and state employment on sectarian grounds. “This doesn’t address the endemic problems, doesn’t address the need for political change, for a new constitution, the economic disparities or the political division of Sunnis and Shi’a. All the underlying problems remain,” Bassiouni said. “That’s not going to solve the problems of power disparities between the Shi’ite population and the Sunni rulers, nor the feeling of injustice the Shi’a community has.”……… “What I have found so far is the extraordinary willingness of the minister to listen to anything we bring to his attention and act on it, whether it’s suspension of police officers, arrest of police officers, or release of detainees,” he said. “It leads me to believe that on his part there was never a policy of excessive use of force or torture…that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I think it was a case of people at the lower level acting ……………”

Perhaps Mr. Bassiouni is trying to goad the ruling family of Bahrain back toward serious negotiations, which would mean serious concession to the rights of the people. To do that he may be willing to “photoshop” some facts. It is a novel approach: in most other cases of abuse those at the top were, rightly, blamed. He is blaming some at the bottom, hard case to make an absolute oligarchy. Yet his “investigation” is just starting.
The fact that people were tortured, assaulted, killed is blamed on “lower level” people”. Perhaps Bassiouni can also blame it on the fact that many regime mercenaries speak no Arabic (mostly Urdu) or a different dialect of Arabic and could not properly communicate with their victims. Then he needs to explain why Bahrain’s official media, the BTV, was a bullhorn of sectarian and ethnic hatred for so long? And why so many mosques and religious structures were deliberately demolished? And did the Pakistani mercenaries accuse the protesting Arab people of Bahrain of being traitors and part of an Iranian plot? And did the foreign mercenaries invite the Saudi National Guard to invade and wreak havoc? And did the thugs (baltagiya) decide on their own to conduct organized systematic raids of people’s homes after mid-night? Does this mean we will be seeing trials of those responsible and court decisions? The toughest case will be to explain the regime’s appointment of an (alleged) former torturer to attend the failed “dialog”.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Economics, Egypt, Finance, Iran, North Africa

Arab Revolutions and Oligarchs: with a Little Help from their Friends…….

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      BFF
“What would you think if I sang out of tune,

Would you stand up and walk out on me.

Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,

And I’ll try not to sing out of key.

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,

Mmm,I get high with a little help from my friends,

Mmm, I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends……..” The Beatles (also sung by Joe Cocker and Arab Oligarchs)

“It is hard to say for sure who took down the portrait of the revolution’s most famous martyr, Mohamed Bouazizi, from its perch atop a garish gold statue on the street where he set himself on fire, touching off a season of revolt across the Arab world. One man said unnamed counterrevolutionaries did it, and another man said it was damaged by rain. Mr. Bouazizi’s neighbors say it was taken down in disgust, several weeks ago, after his mother, uncle and siblings left Sidi Bouzid, an act the neighbors considered a betrayal……. But more than that, they said they were furious at being left behind, in a place with no jobs, money or hope, without the famous Bouazizis to give voice to their despair……. It is a measure of the deep frustration in Sidi Bouzid that a few people have lashed out at the town’s favorite son. That anger is misplaced, most residents say, blaming the lack of progress here on the transitional government, which has moved slowly to address one of the revolution’s central complaints — youth unemployment — especially here in the towns of central Tunisia, where the uprising began. The bitterness here stands in stark contrast to a guarded optimism elsewhere in Tunisia about the progress of the revolution, and it threatens to undermine the gains: Several times in the last few months, disputes over jobs have led to deadly episodes of violence……..In Tunisia, as in Egypt, the optimism fueled by a popular uprising has crashed into the cold reality that life has not quickly improved, and in many cases has even grown more challenging as economies stall and interim leaders struggle to build a new system……….”

The Tunisian revolution is still unfinished, anymore than the revolution in Egypt. In both countries long-term dictators were overthrown but their appointees, whether civilian or military, are trying to keep the old order in place. In Egypt the military is asserting its supreme power and it looks set to keep on playing a leading role no matter who wins the ‘election’. The military rulers are almost certainly looking to oversee a “soft democracy”, slightly more open than under Mubarak, perhaps with leaders having term limits as in Iran (but the power of the military in Egypt, like that of the clergy in Iran, will have no term limits). In Tunisia there is probably more consensus among the people about the future of the country, but real change will be hard.
 
Both countries will eventually look more to the IMF and World Bank for financial help and advice on how to manage their economies. The IMF and IBRD are the same institutions that funded and advised the old regimes: ergo, don’t hold your breath expecting anything new. Both countries will also look to the West for help and advice, look to the same insane deregulated economic/financial system that has driven us to the brink of another depression.
Then there are the Arab counterrevolutionaries, flush with cash, who did not wish for the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings to succeed but now seek to subvert them. Now the Arab absolute monarchs and their media are talking as if they were behind the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt the whole time. They are holding the line, these Arab counterrevolutionaries, in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain, and they are making sure it does not start elsewhere. With a little help from their friends.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

GCC: Two Sweet Princes Exchange Notes……………

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“Manama, Aug 3 (BNA) His Royal Highness the Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa today received a telephone call from the Saudi Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Interior Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. During the conversation both sides exchange best wishes on the occasion of the advent of the holy month of Ramadan. Moreover, both sides also reviewed historic brotherly ties existing between Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom of Bahrain along with regional and international developments……….”

I wonder wtf these tow sweethearts talked about on the phone. What “international developments” they could be interested in: global warming? deforestation of the Amazon? World disarmament? The NFL team rankings?

Cheers
mhg


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