Category Archives: Arab Revolutions

Arab Revolutions, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Saudi Princes Offer to Buy Syria from Russia..……

      

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“Saudi Arabia has reportedly offered to buy arms worth up to $15 billion from Russia, and provided a raft of economic and political concessions to the Kremlin – all in a bid to weaken Moscow’s endorsement of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The diplomatic initiatives were anonymously voiced to Reuters by multiple Gulf state diplomats and senior leaders of the Syrian opposition, in the wake of last week’s meeting in Moscow between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi National Security Council chief Prince Bandar bin-Sultan. The Saudi politician has orchestrated his country’s foreign policy in recent months. “Bandar offered to intensify energy, military and economic cooperation with Moscow,” a senior Syrian opposition figure told Reuters. “Bandar sought to allay two main Russian fears: that Islamist extremists will replace Assad, and that Syria would become a conduit for Gulf, mainly Qatari, gas at the expense of Russia.” The $15 billion figure was touted by a representative of the anti-Assad opposition….………..”

The Saudi princes want to liberate Syria from its current rulers and hand it to others who are allied with them. So they offer to pay Russia in order to get Syria, effectively offering to buy Syria from Russia. They have again resorted to their best and most effective strategy for buying friends and gaining influence. There is nothing they have to offer anyone besides money, and they use it extensively. They have no ideology or set of values that appeal to anyone outside the ruling family. Nobody anywhere admires them for who they are or for what they do. It is all to do with how much they are willing to pay. That applies to the Arab peoples and to foreign countries, from North America all the way across to the western shores of the Pacific Ocean. Apparently their attempt to buy the Russian government, or to buy Syria from the Russian government, has failed so far.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, GCC, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria

Field Marshal Bandar of the Caucasus, Lebanon, and Syria, and Qatar………

      

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“In a country of the blind, the one-eyed jack is king” Not Nietzsche


“Many of these Russian fighters and their Syrian comrades are (theoretically) under the command of a single man: Bandar bin Sultan. For one thing, the top Saudi security man is their main financier, arms source, and their virtual political spokesperson, whether directly or through his deputy, the head of the Syrian National Coalition Ahmad al-Jarba……….. His most recent experience of a military nature took place in Lebanon, after 2006, when Bandar convinced the Saudi king to bankroll a militia for Saad Hariri. Some observers familiar with that experience say that Bandar spent more than $200 million to build this paramilitary force, only for the whole plan to meet a catastrophic defeat in less than 20 hours of fighting, in May 2008. In Syria, Bandar bin Sultan did not deviate from his usual approach. He has set very high expectations, and today, according to some who met him over the past few weeks, he sees no issue more important than Syria. For instance, Bandar rarely mentions Yemen, Iraq, or Lebanon, except from the standpoint of defeating Iran and Hezbollah in the Levant……… Nevertheless, these concerns did not prevent Bandar from wagering on his fighters’ achievements over the next few months. For instance, the Saudi prince wants to see breakthroughs by the rebels in northern Syria, starting in Aleppo, and in the south, where he will try to convince the Jordanian regime to allow fighters and weapons to flow into Daraa and the Golan….……”

No doubt Prince Bandar fancies himself some kind of strategist. He wants to be known as such rather than just another corrupt prince (you know: BAE Systems, Al-Yamama, SFO, Tony Blair, etc). And he is a strategist by Al Saud standards: the one-eyed jack is king in a country of the blind. He can plan and strategize (do strategery, as he learned serving in the Bush White House). On more than one front. He can liberate Syria and Lebanon (maybe the two are related) while keeping Iraq highly unstable and Bahrain under control and the Al-Thani of Qatar in their rightful place playing second or third fiddle. Putting Iran on the defensive until the USA or Israel come to their senses and start a new war in the Middle East. In the meantime keeping the captive peoples of the Arabian Peninsula (aka the Saudi people) under tight control.
 
It should be easy: Hitler did it by declaring war on Russia and America in the same year and making it stick for more than one whole year. Until his natural stupidity caught up with the fake aura of invincibility. But Hitler was never before defeated by the ragtag barely-armed Houthi tribal clan of Yemen, his Stalingrad was further north than Yemen or Syria or Lebanon.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Lebanon, MENA, Saudi Arabia

Saudi-Lebanese Media Calling for the Liberation of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Gaza, and Iran…………..

      

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“Acting US Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who chairs the Security Council for the current month, and British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant spoke in strong terms and presented the kinds of violations of UN Security Council resolutions Iran had committed. Yet they did not put forward any measures, draft resolutions, or additional steps regarding such serious violations of resolutions issued under Chapter VII of the UN Charter –out of fear of the dual veto, according to Washington and London. This is in itself horrifying because it means that Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, Damascus, and Hezbollah have succeeded at subjecting the United States and Britain and frightening them through the Russian-Chinese veto. To be sure, it is unconvincing for the Obama administration to suffice itself with mere rhetoric, stating, as did DiCarlo, that there was a “steady of flow of Iranian arms, military support, advisors, and training to groups in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Iraq and beyond” and that “[the Security] Council must tackle with renewed urgency [the issue of such] Iranian military assistance”. Thus, without practical steps to follow such an important discourse, the implicit American decision seems to be to submit to the de facto situation, in order to avoid confrontation with Iran, or with Russia and China…………………”

This chick writes for Saudi daily Al-Hayat, the newspaper of Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al-Saud. She is often unhappy, nay pissed, with the Western powers for not doing the exact bidding of her Al Saud masters (I get pissed with them because I often think they do the Al-Saud prince’s bidding). She is especially pissed with Western powers for not invading and liberating Syria now, for not re-invading and re-liberating Iraq, not invading and liberating Lebanon, and especially for not invading and liberating Iran from itself and its history. Nobody mentions the liberation of Egypt anymore, assuming that Egypt has already been re-liberated from the Muslim Brotherhood and is in the camp of the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi and UAE media have many Lebanese writers. I wouldn’t be surprised if Saad Hariri or Fouad Saniora start a regular column in al-Hayat or Asharq Alawsat (the latter owned by Crown prince Salman). The goal? You got it: to get the West to invade and liberate Syria, Lebanon, Iraq (again), Gaza, and Iran.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Egypt, ethnic cleansing, Muslim Brotherhood, Nazism

Egypt’s Wayward Liberals: New Arab Fascism, Arab Neo-Fascism…………..

      

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“Liberal talk-show hosts denounce the Brotherhood as a foreign menace and its members as “sadistic, extremely violent creatures” unfit for political life. A leading human rights advocate blames the Brotherhood’s “filthy” leaders for the deaths of more than 50 of their own supporters in a mass shooting by soldiers and the police. A hypernationalist euphoria unleashed in Egypt by the toppling of Mr. Morsi has swept up even liberals and leftists who spent years struggling against the country’s previous military-backed governments. An unpopular few among them have begun to raise alarms about what they are calling signs of “fascism”: the fervor in the streets, the glorification of the military as it tightens its grip and the enthusiastic cheers for the suppression of the Islamists. But the vast majority of liberals, leftists and intellectuals in Egypt have joined in the jubilation at the defeat of the Muslim Brotherhood, laying into any dissenters. “We are moving from the bearded chauvinistic right to the clean-shaven chauvinistic right,” said Rabab el-Mahdi…………….”

Egypt’s “liberals”, who are not necessarily secularists or ‘democrats’, are on a fake roll, and on a rampage. They are savoring the demise of their Muslim Brotherhood rivals, and they are not taking any prisoners. Nor is the military junta that is ruling Egypt now (not that it ever stopped ruling). The language of Egypt’s so-called liberals, so long cowed under Mubarak, has been of Nazi (as in 1930s Germany) quality. They are using the same language the Nazis used against the Communists and the Social Democrats (and, incidentally, the Jews). They are hinting, not too subtly,  at something like “ethnic cleansing”: ‘eradication’ of the Muslim Brotherhood. Turning a blind eye to mass arrests of members who were not part of the government, turning a blind eye to proscriptions and property-confiscation, even as Mubarak fuloul are immune (some of them actually brag of having helped with the military takeover).
Egyptian media normally do not believe in gray areas. They often go over the top, exaggerate the goodness of one side (the ruling side) and evil of another side (the side that is out of power). I never cared for the Muslim Brotherhood, although I never equated them with the truly evil Salafists (so much for my objectivity). Now, after following the current hysteria in Egyptian media, they seem more honest to me than many of their current rivals. After all, they never censored or banned or closed the media of their rivals (or maybe they did not have the time). Their own media has been shut down by the military, with the enthusiastic approval of their “liberal” rivals.
Cheers
mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Pakistan, Syria, Taliban

Taliban Join FSA in Syria: There is No Bombing Like Drone Bombing……

      

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“The Pakistani Taliban have set up camps and sent hundreds of men to Syria to fight alongside rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, militants said on Sunday, in a strategy aimed at cementing ties with al Qaeda’s central leadership. More than two years since the start of the anti-Assad rebellion, Syria has become a magnet for foreign Sunni fighters who have flocked to the Middle Eastern nation to join what they see as a holy war against Shi’ite oppressors. Operating alongside militant groups such as the al Nusra Front, described by the United States as a branch of al Qaeda, they mainly come from nearby countries such as Libya and Tunisia riven by similar conflict as a result of the Arab Spring……………….”

It was a natural step, given the variety of Arab, Chechen, Bosnian, and other cutthroats fighting the regime and each other in Syria. With Al-Qaeda and several of its franchises doing what they consider God’s murder in Syria, it was only a matter of time before the Taliban showed up.

Or maybe it is a trick by the Pakistani Taliban to drag Mr. Obama into the Syrian trap. It is no secret that the Taliban love Mr. Obama about as much as they would love any Shi’a ayatollah (which is slightly less than they approve of a bare-faced woman who can read). Given that the drones are attacking gatherings in Pakistan on a regular basis, it is natural for the Taliban to expect the drones to also enter the fray in Syria. On the other hand, that may fall in nicely with some neoconservatives who have been pushing for the US to bomb someone or something or somewhere in Syria. After all, drone bombing is still a from of bombing. It beats no bombing.
Cheers
mhg

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Africa, Arab Revolutions

Syrian Chemical Confusion, Middle East Political Confusion, Omanis to Zanzibar……

      

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“Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group on Wednesday denied Russian accusations that rebels had manufactured sarin nerve gas and used it in a chemical attack outside Aleppo in March. Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin on Tuesday said Russian scientific analysis strongly indicated a projectile containing sarin that hit Khan al-Assal on March 19, killing 26 civilians and military personnel, was fired by rebels. But the Syrian National Coalition said the charges from Moscow, a key ally and arms supplier to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, were “desperate” and “fabricated”. “The Free Syrian Army strongly condemns all usage of chemical weapons against a civilian population and denies Russia’s allegations about the FSA using chemical weapons in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo,” Khalid Saleh, a spokesman for the coalition, said in a statement……………..”

Damn confusing, although to be expected. Western powers (mainly Britain and France) claim the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons in the civil war. Russia claims the Syrian opposition militias have used chemical weapons.
These claims and suspicions are common in the region:

  • Benjamin Netanyahu (of Israel and Palestine) probably believes the Iranians are using chemical weapons all over the world. He would like to convince everybody else of that.
  • Some Egyptian shaikhs (and a few others) probably believe the Israelis are using some special kind of special undetectable chemical weapons that weakens the male drive and reduces the fertility rate.
  • Some Turks claim local Jews are behind the popular uprising in Istanbul and other cities (I think it is just Turks who are bored stiff with seeing Mr. Erdogan on television every day).
  • The Iranian mullahs believe that almost everybody in the Middle East yearns for a theocracy like theirs. They believe the West (mainly the British for some reason) is conspiring to keep the rest from discovering the joys of Islamic theocracy.
  • The Saudi princes pretend everyone everywhere loves them for who they are and not for how much they spend. Some probably believe that they could get elected to their current offices if they have to run (or stand if they were British) for office.
  • The Bahrain shaikhs believe that tough love, real tear gas and torture and bullets and sexual assault, will teach their people to love them, or to grow up and behave like Saudis do.
  • The Syrians, some of them, pretend to believe the Saudi princes and Qatari shaikhs and Lebanese warlords and North Africans Wahhabis are dying to show them the joys of democracy and the freedom of expression.
  • The Omanis, well, the Omanis seem like they wish they could lease their whole country and move everybody to faraway a place between Austria and Switzerland. Or maybe they can lease Zanzibar again……………



Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt

Liberated Egypt: Military Junta to Start New Kangaroo Courts………

      

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“Egypt announced a criminal investigation on Saturday against deposed Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, with prosecutors saying they were examining complaints of spying, inciting violence and ruining the economy……………..”

This is becoming like a kangaroo court, complete with show trials. Call it revenge of the Mubarak feloul, fully paid by Gulf petroleum princes and shaikhs. They plan to try him for espionage, apparently spying for some foreign party. You’d think they were talking about General Sisi. They also plan to try him for economic crimes.
The military junta does not see the irony here: the Egyptian military controls so much of the economy, from industries to land and agriculture, that they had more influence on the economy that Mohammed Morsi did. If anybody should be tried for messing up the economy, it should be both of them.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Sectarian, Syria

Syrian Tunnel: What Two Years of War and Foreign Intervention Have Done………

      

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“The last time I came here, much of the rebel fury was reserved for Alawite Muslims, the minority offshoot of Shiite Islam from which the Assad family and many of the regime’s senior functionaries and paramilitaries are drawn. This year, however, the Shiites themselves are the enemy. A television in the corner is blaring footage of the daily sectarian violence in neighboring Iraq, most of it directed against Shiites, and I ask Aleh, a wiry young man sitting beside me, whether he really wants Syria to end up like that. “I want it and I don’t want it. I don’t want it because it will kill very many. But the Shiites must understand that they don’t own Syria or Iraq. A very bad war is coming.” But surely, I say, he’s only talking about the irregular paramilitaries of the shabiha and not an entire religious group? “We don’t like all the Shiites, because all of them are killing us,” he insists. “They say bad things about our Prophet. When I kill a man in the Syrian Army, I am sad. But I enjoy killing Shiites or Alawites.”……………….”

Before Iraq and before this so-called misnamed Arab Spring, our region has not heard or practiced such sectarian venom in more than a thousand years. Killing by identity was limited to brief spurts of civil strife in places like Lebanon. Slitting of throats and beheading by identity is almost like something new from the 21st century.
That is what foreign intervention, all foreign intervention, on both sides, has done to Syria.
That is what foreign money and fighters and ideology and hatred and weapons have done. And the end is not in sight. The Syrian tunnel is dark and it is growing longer as it twists until it becomes a dark regional tunnel.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt

Egypt Upside Down: Mubarak’s Military and Mubarak’s Courts to try Morsi for Escaping Mubarak’s Prison ………..

      

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“Prosecutors will investigate allegations that Egypt’s ousted president escaped from prison during the 2011 revolution with help from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, officials said Thursday. Chief prosecutor Hesham Barakat has received testimonies from a court in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia that will be the base for an investigation by state security prosecutors into the jailbreak by Mohammed Morsi and more than 30 other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media..…………….”

I have suspected that the military junta would never release Mohamed Morsi. Coup leaders usually have three alternatives for legitimate leaders whom they overthrow: (1) Death as in the case of Allende in Chile (1973) or the Hashemite royal family of Iraq (1958) or Lumumba in the Congo (1961); (2) Exile as in the case of the bloodless coup by Nasser and Naguib in Egypt (1952), Juan Peron of Argentina (1955), and many others; (3) prison or house arrest, as in the case of Mossadeq of Iran (1952), Naguib of Egypt (1954), and Morsi of Egypt (2013). Among others.
Morsi looks like he is headed for prison or house arrest. Most likely prison, unless he accepts to go out into foreign exile. The military junta and the Mubarak-istas would love for him to accept foreign exile, but he probably will refuse because it might absolve them of the coup (which might be considered a crime against the people at some future date). After all, Morsi was elected legally.
That is why they seem to be planning to charge him for escaping from Mubarak’s prison during the uprising of January-February 2011. Imagine, a post-Mubarak revolutionary regime charging him for escaping the dictator’s prison during the revolution. Except that this latest regime in Egypt is a Mubarak regime in almost everything but in name (and its alliances).
So, Mr. Morsi is now back under arrest by Mubarak’s military, one year after he was elected president of Egypt.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Culture, Egypt, GCC, Humor, Muslim Brotherhood, UAE

UAE: Liberator of Egypt Retires from Twitter……….

      

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Liberator of Egypt and his ‘nooq’: proud family man


I noted in an earlier post that Dhahi Khalfan, chief of Dubai Police, might be part of a high-level delegation of UAE potentates that visited Egypt. As it turned out, he was not. General Khalfan is quite a character. He is allegedly widely considered the true “liberator of Egypt” by many of his compatriots, including some UAE journalists and academics and intellectuals who are not currently on trial or serving prison terms for their political views. He hinted last week that his battles on Twitter were instrumental in provoking the military coup led by General Al Sisi that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood regime led by Mr. Morsi and replaced it with some Mubarak veterans.

It seems, from the photo posted above, that Mr. Khalfan may have retired from Twitter and other social media in order to spend more time with his family. You might notice him standing proudly, facing his four camels (called nooq نوق in Arabic in this particular case). Remember, they are four and only four of these “nooq”.

FYI: I have always written here that the camel is one of my favorite animals. It still is.
Happy Ramadan
Cheers
mhg


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