Category Archives: Arab Revolutions

Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, ethnic cleansing, Occupied Bahrain

The Jews of Manama? Drowning the revolution in Shia blood………

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“Bahrain is trying to drown the protests in Shia blood. “Let us drown the revolution in Jewish blood” was the slogan of the tsars when they orchestrated pogroms against Jews across Russia in the years before the First World War. The battle-cry of the al-Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain ever since they started to crush the pro-democracy protests in the island kingdom two months ago might well be “to drown the revolution in Shia blood”. Just as the tsars once used Cossacks to kill and torture Jews and burn their synagogues, so Bahrain’s minority Sunni regime sends out its black-masked security forces night after night to terrorise the majority Shia population for demanding equal political and civil rights. Usually troops and police make their raids on Shia districts between 1am and 4am, dragging people from their beds and beating them in front of their families. Those detained face mistreatment and torture in prison. One pro-democracy activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, brought before a military court last week with severe facial injuries, said he had suffered four fractures to the left side of his face, including a broken jaw that needed four hours’ surgery……..It soon became clear that the government is engaged in a savage onslaught on the entire Shia community – some 70 per cent of the population……..”


This policy of apartheid has been going on in Bahrain since the ruling al-Khalifa clan reneged on its promise at independence to hold free elections. That was in 1975 when they dissolved the first and last freely elected legislature. Like in most Arab despots they managed to keep the people at bay through fear, prison, and exile. The difference is that now in Bahrain, like in other Arab states, the fear is gone. Now the al-Khalifa clan and their Saudi Wahhabi masters and their Pakistani and Jordanian mercenaries are trying to restore that old fear into the hearts of the Bahraini people. They are trying the old method of unbridled violence.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Persian-American Gulf, UAE

UAE Flashpoint: Blackwater in Zayed Military City…………

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“The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom. Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times. The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest or were challenged by pro-democracy demonstrations in its crowded labor camps or democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year. …… The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials……..”

The al-Nahayn clan of Abu Dhabi are moving up in the world. Not only are they the second biggest importer of weapons in the world (and aiming to be the absolute biggest) with a native population of only a few hundred thousand. They are also gathering an elite foreign mercenary force under former Blackwater executives. It is not clear what their goal is, but they can probably wreak havoc in places like Oman and some of the poorer emirates that are more likely to rebel. They can also start probing around the Persian-American Gulf in a way that could start a military conflict with Iran: that is very likely to draw in the United States. In other words, this despotic oil-soaked Abu Dhabi clan could force Americans to enter yet another war in the Middle East, just as the Wikileaks cables told us they had urged the USA to do. A very dangerous situation.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Occupied Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

SS Bahrain: Normal Life under Occupation………

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“In the back alleys and streets of this Shiite Muslim town, a police crackdown looms at any hour of the day, but never more so than at nightfall, when even innocuous civil disobedience can lead to jail and perhaps torture. The angry young men here know from experience that the police will use helicopters, blunderbuss rifles, and tear gas to confront them, but they plot their next nighttime protest march nevertheless, in what’s become a cat-and-mouse game under Bahrain’s state of emergency, imposed to crush what remains of the country’s protest movement. The police, mainly Sunni Muslims recruited from Pakistan’s Baluchistan province as well as Yemen, Syria, and other Muslim countries, deploy three or four vans at the entrances to this town’s residential neighborhoods. Inside are 12 to 20 men ready to pounce the first moment they hear of a demonstration – even a candlelight vigil – against the government…….. Still, every night in many Bahraini villages and towns, residents gather on their rooftops at 8:15 and again at 10 to issue what’s become a protest cry: “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great.” Police deploy helicopters to try to drown out this protest, and to drop tear gas canisters on the rooftops………”

They have stolen almost everything there is to steal from Bahrain. The rapacious tribal party of the Al Khalifa had to keep most of their people impoverished in order for the shaikhs and shaikhas (princes and princesses) to live in the style of their richer neighboring royals in Saudi Arabia, UAE and other Gulf states. They have spent the thirty-five of suspended politics robbing the poor island blind, its native villages nearly destitute.
Now they are also stealing the rest: their freedom, their right to speak for themselves, and they are trying to steal their faith through the systematic destruction of Shi’a mosques and shrines.
Backed by unlimited money and troops from the al-Saud despots, supported as usual by the Salafi sycophants, and possible promises not to worry about the Obama administration, the Al Khalifa feel they can do whatever they want to the captive country.
(FYI: nobody seems to worry about the Obama administration. It is focused like a laser beam on the 2012 elections, which means it is focused like a laser beam on Osama (dead), al-Qaeda, and Pakistan. It is also focused on keeping the Palestine-Israel issue unresolved until after 2012. Why do you think Mitchell gave up? They are also focused on keeping the al-Saud and al-Nahayan despots happy and pumping oil and buying more weapons that they can’t use. Bahrain’s vile al-Khalifa clan don’t count: they are just an appendage of the al-Saud dynasty and they are just happy to remain in control of the finances of the captive islands.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq

Arab Revolutions: the Midterm Grades……….

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It is midterm time for Arab revolutions, which started right after Tunisian Mohammed Bu’azizi torched himself in protest last December. In Egypt, the beating death of Khaled Said had already shocked the country and planted the seeds of January 25. I grade them here according to performance:

Egypt  B: Mubarak is gone but too soon for an A or A- (I never gave above A-).

Tunisia   B: Still a struggle, and too soon for an A-.

Libya   C+: So much to go. We don’t even know who will emerge among the rebel leaders. Some of them were with Qaddafi until recently.

Yemen  C+: Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to leave, but is backtracking

Bahrain  C: The regime had to import foreign occupation forces to suppress its people. Too early to tell. The al-Khalifa clan (some Bahrainis consider the treasonous for importing foreign forces), Saudi occupation forces, and imported mercenaries from Pakistan and Jordan and other places are ruthless.

Syria  C: Still ongoing, although analysts bet the regime will survive (they also mostly thought Bin Ali and Mubrak would survive at the beginning of their revolutions). It is not clear to me who is leading the Syrian uprising, who will dominate. They are against the regime, but what do they stand for? Syrians are traditionally a tolerant secular people, but it is hard to assess how 50 years of Ba’ath dictatorship has affected that (since 1963, before the Assads). There seem to be several factions: various secularists (including exiled Ba’athists), various Muslim Brothers, Salafis. It is not clear how much commitment any of these groups has for democracy. You can scratch the Salafis out as far as democracy is concerned: they believe in it even less than the Ba’ath Party does. We are talking Taliban here. Yet the ruling Ba’ath dictatorship, like other despots in Egypt and Tunisia and Algeria and Bahrain, are chiefly responsible for the growth of fundamentalism.

Saudi Arabia  F- (get my point?): Pathetic: only one guy was brave enough to come out into the street of Riyadh and talk to foreign media and protest the heavy security. Khaled al-Jehany said his country was like a big prison. Now he has been in a small cell in a smaller prison ever since. Regime and its palace Salafi shaikhs have most people terrified of prison and torture in this world and hell in the other world. Yet there are many brave men and women in the Arabian Peninsula, for many are in prison and in exile.

UAE   F:   (a few guys thrown in prison by the al-Nahayan was enough to shut everybody up in this new police state).
 
Oman C:  (for trying).
Algeria:  D.      Jordan: C-.    Morocco: C
Qatar: “WTF is an uprising?”

(Lebanon and Iraq: is it just an illusion, or do Iraq and Lebanon seem like the most stable, most democratic, most free Arab countries now)?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Jordan

Freedoms the GCC will Bring to Morocco and Jordan………….

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“A pro-democracy activist in Bahrain appeared to have been beaten and possibly tortured before he appeared in court this week, according to the New York-based nonprofit Human Rights Watch. Abdulhadi Khawaja was one of 14 defendants, mostly opposition leaders in the Persian Gulf state, who were charged with seeking to “topple the regime forcibly in collaboration with a terrorist organization working for a foreign country,“ Human Rights Watch said in a statement Tuesday. Seven others were charged in absentia. When Khawaja’s wife and daughter spoke with him briefly after he appeared in court Sunday, the first time they had seen him since his arrest April 9, he told them he had suffered four fractures to his face, including one to his jaw that required four hours of surgery. Khawaja’s daughter Maryam told Human Rights Watch that her mother and sister met with him for 10 minutes after the initial hearing………The state-run Bahrian News Agency called the reports “fabricated, politically motivated news.”……..”

“Amnesty believes that many of the defendants in #Bahrain are likely to be prisoners of conscience detained simply 4 exercising their right”
“#AmnestyInternational on #Bahrain -At least two have said they were tortured, raising fears about their chances for a fair trial.”
”

“#AmnestyInternational on #Bahrain – Bahraini authorities have already denied the defendants their basic legal rights”
“Bahrain oil company fires 300 workers over protests goo.gl/ENkSn #feb14 #bhn #feb14”
“University of #Bahrain turns to look like Guantánamo bit.ly/jlbG7P #feb14 #bnn…..”

I know Jordan and Morocco are not exactly Jeffersonian democracies, not even Turkish democracies. But they are more democratic than the GCC countries. They certainly are more “democratic” than the tribal quasi-feudal fiefdoms that are Saudi Arabia and the UAE, or the tribal sectarian fiefdom that is Bahrain under al-Khalifa. I assume they don’t torture people like this in Morocco anymore. But rejoice, people of Morocco, you’ll get this as soon as you join the Gulf Tribal Monarchy Council. I know your regime is not nearly as vile as some in our region, but that is okay: no regime in the world is probably as vile as the al-Khalifa of Bahrain. As an added bonus, you ‘ll also get the benefits of Salafi sectarianism and maybe even Apartheid.

I am waiting for Mr. Obama and Hillary Clinton to express their utter joy in this proposed expansion of the joys of tribal absolute monarchy freedom to Morocco and Jordan. While holding their noses, of course. Imagine, to the shores of the Atlantic, a stone’s throw away from Lexington (Mass.) and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. This march of royal liberty, will it cross the ocean westward?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Gulf states, Occupied Bahrain

On My Gulf: Brave Women and Cowardly Princes………..

     
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                                                                       My BFF          Missing poet Ayat
“In Bahrain, human-rights workers say at least 50 medical staff are still missing after a crackdown on hospital care for injured anti-government demonstrators. There are fears that some of the detained staff could face stiff sentences for treating protesters. Among them is Dr al-Dallal, a prominent physician arrested on March 17 during a military raid at Salmaniyah hospital in Manama. His wife, Fareeda al-Dallal, was also arrested and beaten under custody last Tuesday. Al Jazeera spoke to her about her arrest and the fears she has about the safety of her husband……”

Dr. Fareeda was interrogated for some time then released. Marks on her face clearly show the results of beatings she endured by the imported mercenary interrogators of the al-Khalifa clan. Dr. Fareeda faces more trouble: she is being called for more interrogation after talking on Aljazeera of her torture. They will likely charge her with “slandering the state” and torture her some more, possibly sentence her.

In my Gulf region, which seems suddenly empty of men, except for some in Bahrain, she stands tall. There are many other women of Bahrain who have stood up for their rights and are enduring the wrath of the despots and invaders: they are doctors, nurses, students, teachers, reporters, and others. She, like the poet-student Ayat al-Qormezi, are a thousand times better than the fat corrupt strutting princes, mentally flatulent potentates and their retainers on my Gulf. Ayat was arrested several weeks ago for reciting one of her poems (video) at Lulu (Pearl) Square: she was arrested after the Saudi invasion. Her whereabouts are unknown. They are both, they all are, certainly braver than all the men in my Gulf, braver than Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama and European leaders who have gone silent about the torment of Bahrain even as they make the right noises about Libya and Syria. (I do not mention Arab leaders here because it is given that they are “what” they are).
Cheers
mhg



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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain

The Thrilla of Apartheid in Manama……

     
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“MANAMA, Bahrain — Hassan Mohamed ran his finger over bumps of birdshot beneath his skin. He is nearly blind in his left eye, but is scared to go to the emergency room. The wounds would betray him as a protester. His sister arranged to sneak him into a hospital to visit a doctor she trusts. Mohamed was worried. “The police are watching,” he said. “I don’t want them to take me.” Helicopters hover over this island kingdom as doctors are rounded up, university students expelled, teachers fired, houses bombed, mosques destroyed and political opponents silenced. What began as a crackdown on a Shiite Muslim population that rose in protest against the Sunni royal family two months ago has become something more pervasive and sinister….. Much of the strategy is driven by Bahrain’s dominant ally, Saudi Arabia, which fears pro-democracy movements will upset the balance of power in the Persian Gulf……….. “It’s apartheid,” said Mansoor Jamri, who was forced to resign as editor of the independent Al Wasat newspaper. “They’ve made a decision that half the population is not wanted and they want to instill fear in this population and dehumanize them.”………..”

These al-Khalifa are acting like a band of thugs rather than the ruling family of a state. That is the image I get, and I believe it is the right image. What they are doing is an organized state-executed pogrom against most of the people of Bahrain, with the goal of enforcing acceptance of their Apartheid policy. Today the Washington Post wrote an editorial urging US military action to “take out” Gaddafi. Maybe Obama ought to send the Navy Seals to get that despotic thrilla of Manama, aka Khalifa al-Khalifa.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, ethnic cleansing, Human Right, Occupied Bahrain

Gulf Niemöller: Protesters, Reporters, Teachers, Doctors, and Jews………….

     
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“First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.” Pastor Martin Niemöller

“Up to 50 doctors and nurses who treated anti-government protesters injured during the recent demonstrations in Bahrain were charged yesterday with acts against the state. In an escalation of the government crackdown on the protests, the medical staff were accused of “promoting efforts to bring down the government” and “harming the public by spreading false news” Some were also accused of causing the deaths of two demonstrators by “inflicting additional wounds” on them or of giving them “unneeded treatments.” In all 23 doctors and 24 nurses were charged and will be tried in a military court, the Justice Minister Khaled bin Ali Al Khalifa said. “The medical profession was strongly abused during this period,” he said. Medical organisations expressed outrage at the legal assault on the profession with health staff seized from their homes and hospitals taken over by the military. Under the Geneva convention people wounded in conflict are guaranteed the right to medical care, regardless of which side they are on…….”

“Bahrain’s justice minister has said 47 medical workers will be charged with acting against the state during the recent unrest in the Gulf kingdom. The 23 doctors and 24 nurses had promoted efforts to bring down the Sunni monarchy and spread false news, Khaled Bin Ali Al Khalifa alleged. Activists say medics are being punished for treating pro-democracy protesters hurt in clashes with security forces. On Monday, two ex-MPs from main Shia opposition group Wifaq were arrested. Matar Matar and Jawad Fairuz were taken from their homes in the evening and had not been heard of since, members of Wifaq said……” BBC News

The al-Khalifa al-Saud pogrom is in full swing in Bahrain. But that is okay, they may get all these Bahrainis mentioned above in the title, but they’ll never get what counts the most: oil and weapons deals. Western democracy will be safe on my Gulf, under the protection of the princes of al-Saud and the shaikhs of al-Khalifa.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Culture, Gulf states, UAE

My Gulf: Two Views of Dubai and Kabul……..

     
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A cynical foreign view: “This is a good question! Everyone knows that Dubai is the most useless city in the world, filled with entitled, arrogant, rude, mindlessly materialistic Emiratis and the shopping malls that sustain them. If Dubai receded into the sand that surrounds it or if its man-made palm shaped islands were drowned by rising sea levels, we would not feel bad for more than one minute. This is all true and not subject to debate. There is absolutely no reason to go to Dubai. Unless, of course, you are arriving from one of the neighboring shitholes (Kabul, Baghdad, Kandahar). In that case, Dubai is absolutely indispensable. It is the only place for you. Dubai must exist because Kabul does, just a short two-hour flight away. Kabul is filthy, violent, medieval and necklaced with razor wire. Thirty percent of the dust in the air is fecal matter. The blue sacks sitting in the mud (30% of which, it stands to reason, is also fecal matter) in intersections are not bags of potatoes; they are women in burqas begging. Donkey carts, armored SUVs and military convoys jam its unpaved streets. Dubai is none of these things (it’s pretty much what happens what medieval warlords do when they come into lot of money, but that’s a different post)………”

A native brown-noser view:
“But why did one succeed while the other failed? Why did ‘Death to America’ not resonate? I suppose, in the end, nobody wants to live in Tora Bora — not even Bin Laden apparently — but, rather Dubai. People rose because they wanted to live well. It must have been hard for Egyptians and Tunisians to understand how a city-state like Dubai, and the UAE in general, could develop with none of the resources of their countries, let alone their political and social institutions. It was no longer about being like London or Paris but rather like Dubai……..”

As for me: I have been to Dubai, both before and after, and I have been to some of those other places. I think the truth lies somewhere in between, between the cynical foreigner and the native writer who never seems to want to displease the ruling masters. My gut feeling, which does not always agree with my economist’s judgment (I have gone sour on economics these past three years), is that the cynical foreigner is closer to the truth. The native writer al-Gergawi always seems eager to please the powers that be, the rulers; but I have read only two or three of his postings. The foreign cynic Carpetblogger clearly doesn’t give a rat’s ass about pleasing anyone, and that is a good sign. Besides, I have never cottoned up to brown-nosers, even when I got so close to being one myself some years ago. Close, but never made it.
Cheers
mhg



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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain

Field Marshal Shaikh Buffoon of Bahrain……….

     
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“If you have no shame, then do what you want” Good Arab Saying

“Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) Commander-in-Chief Marshal Shaikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifa confirmed in an interview published today in the Kuwaiti newspaper “Al Rai”, that the BDF, Ministry of Interior (MOI), and the National Guard system was able to restore safety and security in the Kingdom through stopping those who attempted to overthrow the regime and establish a state within the clerical rule of Iran that follows Welyat Al Faqeeh ” ’ the mandate of the jurist’. Marshal Khalifa bin Ahmed refused labeling the groups involved in the recent events as reform callers, describing them as traitors an saboteurs that led Bahrain into chaos and disorder. Pointing out that the Seven Associations were carrying out the guidance lines from Iran that drew the acts of sabotage and barbarism in the Kingdom. The Commander in Chief explained that upon declaring a state of national safety a number of involved heads in the killing and agitation were arrested, along with the group of terrorists who threatened the civil peace and attacked public and private property to undertake the legal necessary procedures…….”

Field Marshal (no less) Shaikh Khalifa Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa of Bahrain. This Field Marshal, the Rommel of Bahrain, had to call in Saudi forces in order to put down a demonstration or two. Or maybe the invaders just came in on their own. If I were in his place, I would be ashamed. If I were in his place, I would keep away from the media for a while, having to import foreign occupation forces to subdue my people. Before that they had imported foreign mercenaries to subdue the people, bypassing the Field Marshal.
The title of Field Marshal is normally given, in normal countries, only to generals who have fought and won battles. Like Bernard Montgomery of Britain and Erwin Rommel of Germany. Normal countries don’t bestow such honors on buffoons like Shaikh Khalifa Al Khalifa, just for being born.
Cheers
mhg

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