Category Archives: Britain

Britain, Corruption, cyber war, Finance, Saudi Arabia

Another Huge Saudi-British Bribery Scandal, Missing Tony Blair……….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“The British government is facing a potentially explosive decision over whether or not to block a criminal investigation into a new bribery scandal involving a two billion pounds contract to provide communications and cyber warfare capabilities to Saudi Arabia. Dominic Grieve, the attorney-general, will have to decide whether to intervene in an inquiry concerning the payment of millions of pounds in alleged bribes from a British defence firm to the Saudi royal family, according to The Sunday Times. He is to consider whether the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into a two billion pounds contract to provide communications and cyberwarfare capability to Saudi Arabia is in the public interest. According to the report, Grieve has been briefed on the case after officials at the SFO traced secret payments from the defence firm into a bank account in Switzerland controlled by a member of the Saudi royal family……… The case echoes the political scandal that hit Tony Blair’s government when he pulled the plug on a criminal inquiry into alleged bribes by BAE Systems, the British arms firm, to the Saudis. Then the SFO was investigating allegations that millions of pounds had been paid to a Saudi prince to help BAE clinch a 40 billion pounds contract to sell jets to the kingdom. Downing Street killed off the investigation after the Saudis threatened to ditch the contract…………..”

If there is one thing I have learned about European governments, including the British, it is that they will fold in the face ‘financial’ threats by rich Arab despots, be they a Colonel in Libya or a tribal absolute dynasty in Riyadh. It is the money, stupid.
Tony (the poodle) Blair killed the earlier SFO investigation into BAE Systems’ bribes of US$ 2 billion to Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan al-Saud. At that time, The Economist headlined with a mocking “Bribe, Brittania, Bribe…..”. Of course the Saudi people paid that money which was added to the cost of the contract. Blair was also instrumental in the release of al-Megrahi of the Lockerbie bombing. Regardless of the merits of the case against him, he was released for financial reasons, something Tony Blair seems to be good at these days. Tony Blair worked for JP Morgan at the time, which had Libyan deals.
 
Now a similar Saudi case is in the hands of the SFO (British Serious Frauds Office). That was predictable: the thousands of Saudi leeches princes have boundless greed, and they actually believe that they own the Arabian Peninsula, its petroleum, its people, it camels, and everything else on it. Even its Holy places like Mecca which they are turning into a Las Vegas style money machine. I am betting the British government will also kill this investigation, one way or another.

(You will never read or hear about this scandal in Saudi media. You will never read or hear about it in Gulf GCC media either).

Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Britain, UAE

UAE in Photos: Northern Emiratis in London………….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“Dubai’s flagship Emirates airline will sponsor Britain’s first urban cable car, spanning London’s river Thames, saying it hoped the new addition to the city’s skyline would be ready for next year’s Olympics. The 60 million pound project, due to be completed next summer, will link the 02 arena, which hosts concerts and sporting events on the south bank, with the ExCeL conference center on the north side. Both arenas will host events during the 2012 Games. Emirates will sponsor the cable car river crossing in a 10-year-deal …………….”

     
Northern Emiratis                                     al-Nahayan: Southerm Emirati

The picture above shows a bunch of Emiratis who run the airline. Funny, they don’t look like any al-Nahayan or al-Maktoum I have ever seen. They must be from one of the northern Emirates. Compare the photo of Shaikh Khalifa next to it (definitely a southern Emirati).


Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Britain, ethnic cleansing, France, Human Right, Racism

Privately Run Public Gulags: Immigrant Detention Camps of America, Britain, and Australia…………..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“The men showed up in a small town in Australia’s outback early last year, offering top dollar for all available lodgings. Within days, their company, Serco, was flying in recruits from as far away as London, and busing them from trailers to work 12-hour shifts as guards in a remote camp where immigrants seeking asylum are indefinitely detained. It was just a small part of a pattern on three continents where a handful of multinational security companies have been turning crackdowns on immigration into a growing global industry. Especially in Britain, the United States and Australia, governments of different stripes have increasingly looked to such companies to expand detention and show voters they are enforcing tougher immigration laws……………But the ballooning of privatized detention has been accompanied by scathing inspection reports, lawsuits and the documentation of widespread abuse and neglect, sometimes lethal ……….”

Look for France’s Sarkozy to adopt this idea if his electoral fortunes get worse in the coming months. That should seal his re-election in the ‘new’ France.
This looks like a definite accelerating trend in the English-speaking major countries now. Private prisons, private security firms for military installations and embassies, and now private detention concentration camps for illegal immigrants. Anybody can tell you that private for profit security companies seek to maximize profits (surprised?) and that the public sector seeks to ensure humane treatment as well as the proper public policy. The twain shall never meet. I know, they say oversight and inspections will take care of that. Harrrrumph.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Britain, France, Libya, NATO, North Africa

NATO and the Arab World: Are Happy Days Here Again? When Potentates are Divine and Groveling is Hip…….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“NATO planes are still in the air and bombing targets over Libya, and Moammar Gadhafi is still on the loose. Nonetheless, NATO is taking something of a victory lap in the wake of an operation that broke new ground for the military alliance……….. Throughout the conflict, NATO has insisted that its actions are limited to supporting the U.N. resolution that calls for protecting civilians and enforcing an arms embargo. But NATO certainly pushed the boundaries, and critics say NATO ended up providing close air support for anti-Gadhafi rebels. To most observers, NATO was clearly taking the rebel side in a civil war and backing efforts to oust Gadhafi. Those critics worry that NATO risks becoming an armed service provider for the U.N. and other allies. That job description is a long way from what NATO still insists is its core, founding mission: to protect its members’ territory and population…….”

A few decades after the last European imperialists departed the Arab world, militarily speaking, they are back. The major, the only imperialist powers that ruled the Arabs for decades are back to their old turf. That would be the British and the French. Interesting that the British leader (a minority leader) comes from the Conservative (Tory) Party of Winston Churchill but he is hardly Churchill-esqu, and the French president du jour comes from the conservative ranks as well, but he is hardly de Gaulle-esque. But they are here in Libya and looking speculatively toward Syria (while completely ignoring Yemen and Bahrain).
 
Mr. Cameron is doing an Allenby, or is it a Kitchener? While the strutting Sarkozy is more ambitious, if more delusional, and is apparently going for a Bonaparte. Maybe Berlusconi is also dreaming of the old Roman Province of Africa but he is a bit late. Now we can say that NATO, or various parts of it, control the skies and the seas and the land of almost the whole Arab World, save for a sliver in Gaza and a very iffy Syria that is also teetering, and parts of Lebanon. Now NATO also controls all of the Middle East, save for these mentioned parts and theocratic Iran (remember that Turkey is part of NATO and Israel is practically an honorary member).

All that because the corrupt Arab system, and not just the League of Arab States, has failed the Arab peoples for decades. There was a time, decades ago, when Arabs were hopeful and had expectations of something better. Maybe they were delusional, but they had optimism and hope. In recent years, they have been reduced to bowing to potentates and absolute monarchs and dictators. It is now cool, nay it is hip, in much of the Arab world to bow and grovel to the potentates. One, or perhaps two, of these potentates are increasingly assuming the air of something beyond statesmanship, more like quasi-divinity, egged on by their all pervasive vast dynastic media that control the Arab skies and waves and the squads of thugs and mercenaries.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Britain, Corruption, Mercenaries, Weapons deals

Gulf Arms Race: the Best Armed Foreign Mercenaries, it is the Commission, Stupid!………

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“At the Defence Security and Equipment International arms fair in London’s Excel Centre, there is no shortage of options for dishing out bad days, weeks, months and whole lifetimes. The Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, addressed the delegates yesterday morning, extending a warm welcome to the various invitees, among them military procurement officers from Angola, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The 65 national delegations asked to buy weapons in London include 14 regimes defined as “authoritarian” by human rights groups, who have highlighted the use of British arms in suppressing opposition movements in the Middle East……….. Saudi Arabia is by far the biggest buyer of British weapons and also the largest importer of arms globally. Saudi contracts earned the UK about £300m last year, according to arms trade analysts the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute……………”

So, all this means that the citizen of the UAE and Saudi Arabia is the best armed citizen anywhere in the whole wide world. Funny, they don’t look it: I suppose I should correct and say that the UAE foreign mercenary is the best armed foreign mercenary anywhere in the world.
According to SIPRI, it now looks like Saudi Arabia is the biggest arms importer in the world. The United Arab Emirates was the biggest Arab arms importer and the second largest arms importer in the world for several years, but no more. The UAE has less than one million citizens (plus a few million temporary foreign laborers) while Saudi Arabia probably has some 15 million citizens (plus millions of temporary foreign laborers). Now the potentates in Abu Dhabi will try harder to surpass the potentates in Riyadh. They certainly can afford it more than Riyadh can. That also means that some Saudi prince(s) will collect billions in commissions (called bribes in impolite and crude company, but I won’t stoop to that), much more than their Emirati (Abu Dhabi) potentates who will collect less in arms commissions (also called bribes in impolite and crude company, but I won’t stoop to that either).
Now we will have a race: the UAE potentates will seek to regain their position in weapons imports and, not incidentally, in the size of commissions their potentates receive. These fat bribes commissions are paid by the oh-so-generous Western arms exporters, who will then add the cost to the export price. Almost like money laundering: well, it is a way to launder the public money of these Gulf states back to the potentates with the help of the exporting companies. Remember the British BAE Systems and the scandal of the US $2 billion weapons deal bribe to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan (allegedly)? That was the investigation by the Serious Frauds office (SFO) that Tony Blair killed. It was called the al-Yamama deal. A lot of laundering there, more than the proverbial but real Chinese laundry in my neighborhood.

Maybe there are good honest reasons for amassing and storing all these weapons in desert warehouses. Maybe it is the fear of the scowling Iranian mullahs across the Gulf, maybe it is some mistrust of the resolve of the Western allies whose fleets fill my Gulf. In at least two cases it is the fear of the people, which explains the foreign mercenaries. Yet somehow I can’t shake off this nagging feeling that “It is the commissions, stupid!”
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Afghanistan, Britain, Finance, Iran, Iraq, nuclear Iran, Persian-American Gulf, US Foreign Policy

Breaking News! Tony Blair as Windsor, Solves the Iraq Fiasco and Afghanistan……….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“Tony Blair calls for regime change in Iran and Syria as he blames Tehran for prolonging the conflict in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. In an interview to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the former prime minister warns that the Middle East would be “very, very badly” destabilised if Iran acquired nuclear weapons. Blair, who is the Middle East peace envoy, tells the Times: “Regime change in Tehran would immediately make me significantly more optimistic about the whole of the region. If Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons capability it would destabilise the region very, very badly. “They continue to support groups that are engaged with terrorism and the forces of reaction. In Iraq one of the main problems has been the continued intervention of Iran and likewise in Afghanistan.“…….”

Did I write earlier that Tony Blair may be angling for the Nobel Prize in “WMD”?
I’ve got nothing against regime change in Iran or in ‘most’ of the rest of the Middle East (almost all of it). In fact I could recommend a couple of candidates that would make Mr. Blair faint, and I mean biggies. But these changes should be done by the people, not by bumbling Western leaders playing macho outside their bedrooms.
So, Blair now blames the Iranian regime for the wars he started (with his allies). He blames the mullahs for the fact that the “Mission Was NOT Accomplished”. True, the Iranians have their own interests and machinations and they certainly did not try to make life easier for the Mr. Blair and his partners. But to blame his fiasco on someone else? Now that is leadership, “New Labor” style (pardon my missing “u”).

Mr. Blair can now rest assured that he will be retained as “somebody’s” envoy for the Middle East. He need not worry on becoming another Duke of Windsor, whiling his time in luxury on the Riviera. He can also, coincidentally, be assured of more fat deals and contracts from various potentates and oligarchs in my region.

(Nothing personal against Tony, I could overlook anyone’s shortcomings, especially my own. But I detest anyone who calls for another fucking war in my region, and Tony has been calling for another fucking war in my Gulf for some time now. He is treating the region as if it is still his own fucking backyard).
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Britain, Corruption, Libya

In Libya: “New” Labor and the Fog of Deceit, about Ahmadinejad…..

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“The startling extent to which Labour misled the world over the controversial release of the Lockerbie bomber is exposed today in top-secret documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday. In public, senior Ministers from the last Labour Government and the Scottish First Minister have repeatedly insisted that terminally ill Abdelbaset Al Megrahi was freed on compassionate grounds in a decision taken by Scottish Ministers alone. But the confidential papers show that Westminster buckled under pressure from Colonel Gaddafi, who threatened to ignite a ‘holy war’ if Megrahi died in his Scottish cell. And despite repeated denials, the Labour Government worked frantically behind the scenes to appease Gaddafi’s ‘unpredictable nature’. As recently as last month, a spokesman for Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond was insisting: ‘The decision was taken on the basis of Scots law and was not influenced by economic, political or diplomatic factors.’ Equally damaging, the documents also suggest that as well as sharing intelligence-gathering techniques, Britain gave Libya hundreds of suggested questions for Islamic militants detained in Libya in 2004. This will inevitably cause widespread dismay because of the regime’s systematic use of >torture during interrogation………..”

Now why can’t the Iranians use the same system of blackmail to get their way? They have more oil and a hell of a lot more natural gas. They say Tony Blair “helped” Qaddafi’s son get a PhD from the London School of Economics. Hell, Tony Blair may even help Mahmoud Ahmadinejad get a second PhD, this time in “statecraft” instead of Science. Or better yet: a PhD on how to behave after leaving office.
(The Libyan NTC is doing the right thing in refusing hypocritical demands of some Western, mainly American, politicians that al-Megrahi be send back to Britain. A deal is a deal: you guys shook on it).
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]

Arab Revolutions, Britain, Corruption, Libya

Qaddafi and his Friends, the Rendition of Tony Blair…….

   Rattlesnake Ridge   Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter   

 
      BFF

“Many of the papers demonstrate the warmth of the relationship between Britain and Libya and, in particular, the extraordinarily close links between the Blair Government and the Gaddafi regime…
• Tony Blair helped Colonel Gaddafi’s playboy son Saif with his ‘dodgy’ PhD thesis while he was Prime Minister.
• British Special Forces were offered to train the Khamis Brigade, Gaddafi’s most vicious military unit.
• MI6 was apparently willing to trace phone numbers for Libyan intelligence.
• Gordon Brown wrote warmly to Gaddafi in 2007 expressing the hope that the dictator would be able to meet Prince Andrew when he visited Tripoli.
• Britain’s intelligence services forged close links with Gaddafi’s brutal security units.
Megrahi was released two years ago and transferred back to Libya. ………”

They ought to rendition Tony Blair somewhere, perhaps to Cheney’s spread in Wyoming(?) or the Halliburton compound in the UAE, where he can be water-boarded into telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help him Gordon Brown. Speaking of the PhD of Sais al-Islam Qaddafi, many Western leaders deserve PhDs in deceit.
Cheers
mhg


[email protected]