Category Archives: Arab Revolutions

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

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

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“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 Politics, Arab Revolutions, Israel, Libya, Palestine, Qatar

Abrams Pissed at Qatar, When in Rome and Carthage………

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“Qatar has acquired a reputation for sharp, quick responses to crises in the Arab world and for modern and unorthodox thinking. It is undeserved. Qatari diplomatic activity is designed to advance the interests of the tiny country and of its ruling family. Its adoption of the Libyan opposition, for example, is not based on any principle (such as liberty, democracy, or free elections), for the Qatari government and its TV station, Al Jazeera, have been notably silent about the crisis in Bahrain. There, they have backed the royal family and the Saudi-led GCC armed presence………Backing the royal family in Bahrain, supporting Hamas but then giving some money to the PA, and financing the rebels in Libya shows Qatari flexibility, but not courageous leadership. What does Qatar seek, beyond influence? Influence for what? ……………..”

Abrams sounds truly pissed at the Qatari oligarchy, but he is right overall about the hypocrisy. I have to agree with him on this one, although it is the Palestinian statehood thing that riles him up the most.
Abrams asks: “Influence for what?” He forgets all about Rome. Long ago, in this galaxy, a small farming community around the upstart town of Rome gained influence and power gradually as it beat regional rivals. Within a couple of centuries, the Roman upstarts defeated Carthage in three (Punic) wars and became undisputed masters of the Mediterranean and half the known world (from Spain to the Euphrates River). Is it possible the Qatari dynasty is seeking to take over the (Persian-American) Gulf? Or maybe they just want to merge with Bahrain (minus al-Khalifa and the Saudi occupation forces, of course). Is it possible they want to conquer the known world? Ich weiss nicht.
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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“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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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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““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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“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, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Healthcare, Human Right

Terror-Based Health Care in Bahrain…………..

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“Bahrain, the tiny but strategically important Persian Gulf monarchy that has sought for months to suppress an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, is engaged in a heated dispute with one of the world’s foremost medical relief organizations, which has stopped working there after accusing Bahraini security forces of raiding its premises last week. The accusation by the organization, Doctors Without Borders, has been challenged by Bahrain’s Health Ministry. But the sensitivities surrounding the dispute over the July 28 raid speak to what human rights activists call a particularly odious aspect of the Bahraini protests: the government’s systematic effort to deny medical services to wounded protesters — partly by jailing or intimidating the doctors, nurses and paramedics who have tried to treat them. Many medical workers in Bahrain are often too frightened to help protesters, activists say, and the wounded themselves are often too frightened to seek help………”

Bahrain’s Ministry of Health early on became notorious for lying about the numbers and conditions of the wounded during the protests. It looks like the ministry has not changed in this respect, and in that it is in line with most other government agencies. Hospitals, especially the Salmaniya Hospital were early on targeted by the Bahrain regime, knowing that a vast number of protesters and others were wounded during the uprising. Being wounded was considered evidence of being a regime opponent, and a reason to be tortured and denied medical care. Checkpoints were used to identify anyone wounded and whisk them away for interrogation (some were beaten on the spot by security agents and foreign mercenaries). That caused many injured Bahrainis to remain at home rather than venture out, even if they were not injured at the protests. Early on, the regime focused on medical professionals, but quickly expanded its “attention” to other professions like teachers, journalists and others.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Syria

Political Advertisement: Syrian Uprising Spills over into Lebanon…………

“Gangs of supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad armed with whips and clubs assaulted a small anti-regime protest in front of the Syrian Embassy in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, leaving several injured. According to accounts of the victims, mostly Lebanese activists and members of civil society organizations, gathered in front of the embassy Tuesday night to show support for those killed by Assad’s gunmen in the Syrian city of Hama when groups of men began striking them and whipping them with belts……. “It was all planned. They came, started chanting for Bashar and then started getting closer to us,” said Saad Kurdi, one of the anti-regime protestors. “We didn’t provoke them. As they chanted ‘We sacrifice ourselves for you, Bashar,’ we chanted over them, ‘We sacrifice for you, Syria,’ and then they attacked us.” Demonstrators blamed the Lebanese Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party, known for being closely aligned with the increasingly isolated Baathist regime in Damascus, for inciting Syrian laborers around the neighborhood to attack them. Lebanon is home to a large community of Syrians who work in construction and many other blue-collar jobs.…………”

It was bound to happen. Lebanese unrest has always spilled into Syria in some way, and Syrian unrest has now reached Lebanon. The Lebanese parties are divided between pro-regime (Syrian regime) like Hezbollah and General Michel Aoun and opponents of the regime like the Phalangists and the Hariri allies. There are also some ethnic racist elements: some Lebanese tend to look down on Syrians who work in their country and there have been incidents of mob attacks and abuses. On the other hand the Syrians controlled Lebanon from 1976 until 2005. Oddly, the Syrian forces entered Lebanon during the civil war in order to prevent the defeat of some of the right-wing parties that are now strongly anti-Syrian.
About the chant of “We sacrifice ourselves for you, Bashar,“: this is common in Arab states, where dictators or absolute monarchs have their paid agents march and chant. The late Saddam Hussein used the chant extensively on the streets of Baghdad and Amman. Nobody would sacrifice their lives for any Arab leader: it is all like the advertisements one sees on television, all paid for (like soap or Corona or Pepsi).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Libya, North Africa

Libya: Shades of the Spanish Civil War, but who Plays the Luftwaffe?

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“Graffiti and billboards here tell a tale of dashed hopes and an uncertain future in a nation divided between Moammar Kadafi’s tenacious regime in western Libya and the fragile rebel government-in-waiting in the east. The graffiti that proclaimed “Game over” for Kadafi in February and spoke longingly of freedom have faded in the scorching summer sun. Gone are rebel billboards that once blared “No foreign intervention!” Now billboards warn rebel gunmen to stop firing their weapons into the air because ammunition is precious and, as the image of a distressed baby attests, it terrifies families. Frayed posters still thank NATO nations for airstrikes and sea and air embargoes, but the rebel leadership is growing impatient with unfulfilled promises of cash payments and with NATO’s failure to topple Kadafi. The enthusiastic daily rallies that once clogged streets and sent tracer fire into the night skies are gone………..”

The Libyan civil war is at a stalemate, for now. Even with Nato airplanes and advisers, the rebels in Benghazi seem unable to tilt the existing balance. There was another civil war some seventy years ago, when a European country was divided: one side attracted volunteers of democracy advocates, the other side attracted the dark forces of Nazism and Fascism. The Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, helped the fascist Falangist forces under General Franco . Franco won the civil war but was smart or lucky enough to remain ‘neutral’ during World War II.
This is not to compare Nato to the Germans of 1936, but there is some superficial similarities. Many Western volunteers, from Europe and the United States, fought with the democratic (Republican) side in Spain. Of course the Qaddafi side is not exactly democratic, and is led by a nasty dictator and his family.
Cheers
mhg


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