Category Archives: Arab Counterrevoltion

Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia

Post Bin Laden: Will al-Qaeda Come in From the Cold?………….

     
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“Bin Laden’s radical politics continued to hold sway with some Saudi youth as Al Qaeda carried out attacks in the desert kingdom mainly in 2003. With an internal crackdown against Al Qaeda, Saudi fighters headed to Iraq to battle the US military and Iraq’s Shiite-led government through 2007. Only after concerted pressure from the Americans, did the Saudi royal family make a serious effort to try to stop the migration of young Saudi radicals to Iraq..…….”

Will al-Qaeda mutate again now that Bin Laden is dead? Will it come in from the cold?
I have never believed that al-Qaeda terrorists, good Salafi sons of the Wahhabi nest, had ever completely cut the cord with the mother. There were a couple of publicized operations inside the Arabian Peninsula, many arrests, trials, re-education camps. Yet the emphasis has always been on ‘misguided’ sons who will return to the bosom. Re-education programs were set up exclusively for these Salafi ‘misguided ones’: by contrast, a ‘misguided’ Shi’a would probably have his head chopped off. Then there was the important money angle: that may explain the reluctance of the terrorists to perform significant operations in the Saudi kingdom. Why blow up decent Wahhabi folks in the ‘mother country’ when there is ample supply of Shi’a heretics next door in Iraq? Why kill the cash cow (or cash she-camel naqah)?

There is no doubt that al-Qaeda will undergo some more changes now that its leader, its main link to the moneyed part of the Arab world, is dead. We may be about to find out how far these changes will go before this year is over. Despite the public ‘animosity’ between al-Qaeda and the al-Saud dynasty, the Saudi regime has kept close and warm relations with the regional supporters of Bin Laden, the Salafis and their various organizations (e.g. Islamic Heritage Societies). Some of them act as outright Saudi agents in the Gulf states, pushing for yet closer ties with Riyadh, pushing for Saudi hegemony. This is partly tribal, but largely political and ideological and, dare I say it, financial.
The Salafi Wahhabis were spawned in Saudi Arabia and have never really strayed too far from their roots. The Saudis know they have a reliably fierce potential ally in their intensifying struggle not only against the ‘rival’ theocracy in Iran but also against the inevitable winds of Arab change and revolution. Al-Qaeda recruits have shown their ferocity in the terrorist campaigns inside Iraq, almost certainly financed by Saudis and other patrons in the Persian-American Gulf. For some years the Saudis tried to tie Iran to al-Qaeda, especially in Iraq, the same way as Dick Cheney tried to tie Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) to al-Qaeda. This was largely based on the proximity of Iran to Afghanistan and that some Bin Laden family members fled after 2001 to Iran. Saudis tried, improbably, to tie the Iranian mullahs to the terrorist acts committed in Iraq against the Shi’as by Saudis and other foreign Salafi Arabs. But that was then, a spin tailored to the Iraqi and American markets of that time.

Now there may be a new twist: a new, yet old, al-Qaeda that is truly allied with the Saudi regime, this time openly. The prodigal Wahhabis returning to the bosom of the mother: the absolute tribal monarchy from which they never strayed too far. They can be used in the coming battle: to intensify terrorist acts in Iraq (and possibly Iran), and they can be used against Hezbollah and Amal in Lebanon (something already started by the Saudi-financed Hariri group). It is an alliance that fits this new sectarian Sunni-Shi’a cold/hot war provoked by the al-Saud in order to divide our unstable region and help keep their shaky throne. This closer alliance is an idea that has no doubt crossed the minds of the al-Saud princes in the past, and they may be putting it to work now. They already have strong ties and alliances to al-Qaeda affiliates and sympathizers like the Salafis of the Islamic Heritage Societies and other groups in the Gulf. They have kept somewhat warm relations with the Taliban (Saudis and the UAE were the only Arab regimes that recognized their rule in Afghanistan before 9/11). Is it a coincidence that his year alone the Saudis have reportedly released hundreds, maybe thousands, of former al-Qaeda terrorists? Are they setting things up for a new alliance, post-Bin Laden? That would be a smart move for them to make, especially now that the more reactionary Prince Nayef is gaining ascendancy.
Cheers
mhg



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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Human Right

May Day: Housemaids and Workers of the Arab World, Unite……

     
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“Several foreign manpower recruitment offices in the Kingdom have urged the authorities to protect their interests and impose tighter regulations on the recruitment of Indonesian workers. They were responding to the Jakarta government’s decision to introduce rules to protect Indonesian workers in the Kingdom. The recruitment companies demanded the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta to draft a new bilateral agreement with new conditions for hiring domestic staff. The new agreement would consist of certain conditions aimed at safeguarding the rights of Saudi recruitment offices against exploitation, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported. It would include a provision compelling Indonesian manpower recruitment agents to bear the responsibility for offenses committed by maids they have recruited………. There is a growing demand from Saudi families to allow them to recruit housemaids from Nepal and Ethiopia. The recruitment charges from these countries range from SR5,500 to SR6,000, with a monthly salary of SR700. The recruitment procedures from these countries would take less than two months,” he pointed out…….”

This is a humanitarian issue all across the Arab world. In a couple of GCC states, I strongly suspect the number of Asian housemaids exceeds the number of native citizens. I ‘strongly’ suspect that is the case in the UAE and Qatar. Some governments do more: the Saudi government sends officials to ‘target’ source countries in Asia to negotiate down the ‘prices’ of housemaids to make them “affordable” for local citizens. Countries that do not agree on lower “prices” for housemaids are punished by banning human imports from them. Not very Islamic, is it?
But the situation may be worse in places like Jordan and Lebanon, although the numbers are fewer. Every week there are reports of one or two Asian maids either falling off the balcony, dying accidentally, or committing suicide in Lebanon. It is almost like being a political prisoner in occupied Bahrain under Apartheid these days: one can die of strange causes.
Speaking of Bahrain: I wish the working people of that captive country better luck and freedom in the near future. So many workers have been fired from their jobs in both the public and private sectors for expressing their opinions.So many Bahrainis have been imprisoned simply for doing their jobs: doctors, nurses, lawyers, teachers, journalists, etc. Many are being tortured, some sentenced to death by military kangaroo courts.
I also salute the workers of Tunisia and Egypt who joined their brothers and sisters in overthrowing the dictatorships, and for keeping their vigilance during the current treacherous period. I salute the workers of all Arab states whose revolutions are still ongoing: Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Algeria, Mauretania, Jordan, and Morocco. Keep your vigilance: don’t let your revolution be hijacked by clones of the old regime, by former members of the old regimes, or by the old colonial masters. Nor by the despotic tribal absolute monarchies allied with the Salafi mercenaries.
I also salute the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula and the United Arab Emirates who are striving, slowly and cautiously but in some cases very bravely, toward civil societies. It is a difficult task in these two police states. Many are in prison under these two regime for using their God-give right to freely express their opinions. Some have been tortured; the price of freedom.
Happy May Day.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Israel, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

The Saudi-Israeli Alliance Comes Out of the Closet………….

     
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“The Arab Spring and U.S. Policy: The View From Jerusalem. Israeli officials want a public commitment from Washington to protect the Saudi regime should it come under threat. It is provocative, but not entirely inaccurate, to suggest that U.S. foreign policy these past few months has been sufficiently erratic to make America’s allies reconsider the degree to which we can be trusted—and our adversaries re-evaluate the degree to which we must be feared. The canary in the coal mine on such matters is Israel. None of America’s allies is more sensitive to even the most subtle changes in the international environment, or more conscious of the slightest hint of diminished support from Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been so concerned that a member of his fractious ………” TedKoppel (WSJ)

Ted Koppel is one of the most serious and reliable  journalists, since before his old Nightline program.
As Hercule Poirot (Belgian waffle not French) never actually said: zee plot, she sickens…….
Cheers
mhg

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, censorship, Saudi Arabia

Saudis Tighten Speech Control: Reform? Never Heard of it?…………

     
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““All those responsible for publication are banned from publishing … anything contradicting Islamic Sharia Law; anything inciting disruption of state security or public order or anything serving foreign interests that contradict national interests,” the state news agency SPA said. Saudi Arabia follows an austere version of Sunni Islam and does not tolerate any form of dissent. It has no elected parliament and no political parties. The tighter media controls were set out in amendments to the media law issued as a royal order late on Friday. They also banned stirring up sectarianism and “anything that causes harm to the general interest of the country.”…… Clerics played a major role in banning protests by issuing a religious edict which said that demonstrations are against Islamic law. In turn, the royal order banned the “infringement of the reputation or dignity, the slander or the personal offence of the Grand Mufti or any of the country’s senior clerics or statesmen.”..……”

Now nobody can criticize the Mufti or the clergy. If the Mufti, Shaikh Abdelaziz Al Al Shaikh refuses to criticize or ban child marriages, then he (Al) is immune from criticism. Actually this is not new: the clergy have always been immune from criticism in Saudi media that are based in the country, and in most media based offshore. The difference is the Internet, where many young Saudis, whether at home or abroad, feel free to express themselves. Those at home run the risk of crossing red lines and getting arrested, those abroad risk arrest upon return home. There will be less tweeting from within the Kingdom without Magic now, less political tweeting. Oh, there will be a lot about Syria and Yemen and Libya, even maybe Iraq (Bahrain? Where is that?), but nothing about domestic politics (the only domestic politics are within the royal family and among their clergy stooges). Last year they started requiring all bloggers to get government permission to start a blog, and to register with the government. Nice reform.
As for banning “stirring up sectarianism”: that is ironic, nay laughable, because the al-Saud and their media are the party most responsible for the poisonous sectarian divisions we see in our Gulf region these days. They would do the same in the wider Arab world if they could, they certainly have tried in Iraq for some years, and in Lebanon through their surrogates in the Hariri camp.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

The Great Saudi Success, of Pakistanis and Salafi History………….

     
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“Saudi Arabia has reportedly invoked a treaty with Sunni-dominated Pakistan to secure troops to stabilize both Bahrain and its own oil-rich eastern provinces. …….. However, pressure from Saudi Arabia and the Shiite population in southern Turkey are forcing Ankara to re-evaluate its ties with Tehran……. Pakistan, of course, has often presented itself as the “sword of the Islamic world” given its nuclear weapons capability. However, its military prowess has been propelled as much by Saudi petrodollars as by American and Chinese aid. In return, Saudi Arabia has over the years relied on Pakistanis to man its own military and has a treaty agreement with Pakistan that mandates the release of up to 30,000 Pakistani troops for the defense of Saudi interests should the need arise. This treaty has reportedly now been invoked, with up to two divisions of regular Pakistani army troops on standby, ready to head for Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia……..”

This growing sectarian escalation is the greatest success of the al-Saud dynasty in many years, perhaps the greatest ever. Only by dividing first the peoples of the Gulf region, then of the Arab world, then of the wider Islamic world, could the al-Saud disrupt and forestall the Arab revolutions, this sputtering Arab Spring. They did not need much work on their own people inside the Arabian Peninsula, generations of Wahhabi-influenced education has taken care of that: to some people in, say, Nejd, most residents of the Eastern Province might as well be Martians. Most of the Gulf region had been peaceful, in a sectarian way, with little tension between Shi’a and Sunnis for decades, since my childhood: even during the Iran-Iraq war when Saddam and his Ba’ath had huge following in my own home town, up to August 1990. (I was not one of this huge following).
The real sectarian tensions started escalating with the rise of the Salafi movement. Born in the realm of the al-Saud dynasty, Salafis got a lot of support from the Gulf dynasties, and for some good but short-sighted reasons. Salafi doctrine, developed in Saudi Arabia, preaches absolute loyalty to the rulers, no matter how rotten and corrupt, as long as the ruler is a good Muslim. This is, in my view, an opportunistic distortion of the Prophets teachings (the Hadith). A good Muslim to a Salafi is someone who builds a lot of mosques and teaches students along the Salafi orthodoxy, period. The latter is not always mandatory: Salafi palms can be greased as easily as other palms. The Salafis, rabidly xenophobic and especially anti-Shi’a, were adopted by various Gulf oligarchies as counterweight to other components of society. They have been a corruptible, a very touchable, counterweight. In most states they were used as a counterweight to the secular pan-Arabs, to the socialists who usually complained of corruption and despotism. In others, especially Bahrain, they were invited in, encouraged, and used to counter not only the Shi’a majority but also the traditionally strong multi-sect secular opposition.
Expanding the sectarian tensions beyond the tribal and sectarian societies of the Persian-American Gulf is quite a coup for the al-Saud dynasty. They have managed to change the subject in the Gulf from revolution and reform to sectarian fear. They would like to expand that division across the whole region. They have the money and the most massive media in the third world with a bought army of journalists and academics disseminating their propaganda.
Perhaps the growing military and political shadow of the Iranian regime helped them along. The Iranian threat is in my view quite exaggerated, given that Western military bases and fleets are crowding the Gulf and ringing Iran from all sides. Iran is a worry, no doubt, but it has been convenient for Gulf despots to exaggerate it and frighten their peoples into the arms of al-Saud dynasty. I doubt that a prominent Iranian mullah can now go for a ride or talk in his cell phone without someone in the West knowing about it.
Expanding the Shi’a-Sunni tensions to the wider Muslim world plays well into the al-Saud and Salafi hands. Ironically, I don’t believe it has as much traction in most Arab states beyond the Gulf. It is strictly a tribal Gulf thing that can have some traction in divided and Salafi-rich Pakistan, but not in places like Tunisia or even Egypt.
A successful strategy by the al-Saud, but it is a short term one. Fear and divisiveness are no substitute for reform or revolution.
Cheers
mhg



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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, WTF

Palace Intellectuals, Schmellectuals, Revolution, and Evolution………..

     
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“I find the intelligentsia’s capacity to continue to lament public sector failings and private sector irresponsibility towards society when they continue to fail at building a relation with society’s broader public — an audacious contradiction. As long as one is a shepherd, (s)he cannot be a champion of the cause of another’s herd. Until public intellectuals realise that they commit the very failings, which they so fiercely criticise the public and private institutions for, societies will continue to view them with as much distanced alienation as they view the former two groups. What we need is an intellectual evolution of enlightenment not a political revolution against government………….”

Spoken like a true spokesman for the rulers. I say intellectual schmellectual. We don’t have many intellectuals left in our region anyway: most those opinionators are “palace journalists”. I say revolution over the ruling despots first. You can’t build over the same old corrupt foundations.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Iran, US Foreign Policy

Shirin Ebadi on Obama and Bahrain……….

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“The Obama administration is making a major misstep by “closing its eyes” to the violent government crackdown on protesters in Bahrain and leaving the door open for Iran to influence the small oil-producing nation and U.S. ally, Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said Friday. “In the absence of the West in Bahrain, the government of Iran can of course influence and exploit the revolution,” Ebadi, the Iranian-born human rights activist, author and former judge who has been living in exile since 2009, said in an interview at The Washington Post. Ebadi highlighted Sunni-led Bahrain, which is a majority-Shiite nation like Iran that has used violence to stop recent protests…….”

I bet not a single media outlet in the Persian-American Gulf will ever carry this news item. They always headline Shirin Ebadi’s comments against the Iranian regime, and rightly so. Not single newspaper “anywhere” on the Gulf will carry this news item.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Saudi Arabia, UAE

UAE: Al-Nahayan Cracking Down………..

     
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“Human Rights Watch said on Friday that the United Arab Emirates has dissolved a civil society group after it arrested three prominent activists. The rights group urged the UAE to reverse its decision, which it said was a crackdown on peaceful dissent. The Jurist Association was one of three non-governmental organizations that joined hundreds of citizens in signing a petition this month calling for a greater voice in government and legislative powers for the quasi-parliament, the Federal National Council (FNC). Three prominent activists who made similar calls for political reform have been arrested in the last few weeks. UAE officials were not available for comment……….”

The al-Nahayan, owners of Abu Dhabi, also ruling family of the UAE, are applying the Saudi and Bahraini method of dealing with any scent of dissent or independent thinking. These ruling families have many people in their vast media, including hired Arab propagandists, called “palace intellectuals” whose job is to pretend ‘liberalism’ while praising the absolute tribal oligarchs. These brownnosers write as if the rulers of these states are managing a utopia.
The despots try to appeal to world opinion through opening funny branches of elite Western universities, but then throw their professors (and possibly students) in prison or deport them at the first sign of independent thinking. Once in awhile someone decides to show a streak of independence and some honesty and decency: that is when the truth of these despots comes out. The rulers of the UAE have shown that they can be as ruthless as the al-Saud. They both can be as ruthless as Qaddafi or Saleh or Assad: in fact they can be even worse if they face an uprising. The Saudis have shown that cruel ruthlessness in their own country and in Occupied Bahrain.
Cheers
mhg

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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain

A Pledge of Heil Hamad? A Dangerous Game on my Gulf…………..

     
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“Manama, April 19 (BNA) — It was a simple message a group of Bahraini’s wanted to send across to the masses- “reflect their loyalty to the leadership.” In what started last week as signing an allegiance pledge and Loyalty swords campaign is now turned into a movement of masses from all spectrums, turning up in numbers signing their initials supporting the wise leadership. Books were opened at the National Stadium in Isa Town for citizens to show allegiance to the Kingdom and its leaders…………..”

I have read reports that the emir’s (sorry king’s) half-witted son Nasser is behind this drive. He is head of some kind of military or security unit(s). They say the Saudis prefer him to the crown prince Salman, probably on account of his half-wittedness (or is it half-wittiness). So they are starting to force all Bahrainis to sign the pledge of allegiance to this traitorous despotic family who could not control the people with imported mercenaries and had to import Saudi troops to occupy their country. Why not let the people vote on this Mothercare King?
It is going to be like this: no pledge to the despot no job no food no medicine no education. It is like in the days of the Ba’ath in Iraq when people had to join the party to advance: but in Iraq people still got treated and educated if they did not join. In Nazi Germany people had to join the party to advance. This is not to compare the ruling family of Bahrain to Germans, even the Nazis who had some warped perverted ideas of nationalism. The al-Khalifa have no such nationalist ideas, not even warped ones. They are in it for themselves, pure and simple. No different from the al-Saud next door or the less significant al-Nahayan.
This whole thing is like a farce, this family and the other I mentioned. Yet they are playing a dangerous game, probably pushed by their Saudi masters. A dangerous farce played with two absolute ruling clans who have some really dangerous Western weapons at their disposal. They could push our region into another war that would certainly drag in the United States and the West. Is that what these funny ruling tribal polygamous clans, the al-Saud and the al-Nahayan, have in mind? Or are they just pawns of someone else who is moving the pieces? Opinions on my Gulf differ.
(Have you ever heard of King Mothercare?)
Cheers
mhg

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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, US Foreign Policy

Gulf Cat that Got Clinton’s Tongue………….

     
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“Allies of Saudi Arabia have not publicly protested these serious and systematic violations. The European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said on April 18 that she had been “very pleased” with her two-day visit to Riyadh and made no public comments about the political prisoners. Neither Tom Donilon nor Robert Gates publicly commented on the kingdom’s human rights violations. “The EU’s silence on the brazen arrest of a peaceful dissident on the first day of its chief foreign policy representative’s visit looks like a pat on the back for an authoritarian state,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Silence when more than 160 peaceful dissidents are locked up should not be an option for Brussels or Washington.”………. In 2009, Saudi Arabia acceded to the Arab Charter for Human Rights, which guarantees in article 32 the right to freedom of opinion and expression. The kingdom is one of few countries that have not yet signed the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. “As the list of Saudi political prisoners grows longer, the silence of the US and the EU becomes more deafening,”…..”

Susan Rice today brazenly, and rightly, condemned human rights abuses in Syria and Libya and a few other Middle East countries. She waxed indignant. What was most noticeable were the countries she did not mention. Two of these countries are the worst abusers of human rights now: Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Even as Rice was speaking, these two regimes were rounding up people in both countries and torturing them in Bahrain. Not only do they suppress freedoms and dissent, they also practice a form of apartheid discrimination, in the Saudi case against anybody of a different sect or faith, in the Bahrain case against the majority of the people (a la South Africa). Rice did not say boo about them. Nor did Secretary Clinton recently when she lambasted other governments this week. The Saudi pussycat has got all their tongue. No profiles of courage when elected American and European officials are terrified of offending offensive tribal absolute serial-polygamous monarchs.
I knew that deep bow Mr. Obama made in from of King Abdullah in 2009 was the beginning of something.
Cheers
mhg

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