Category Archives: Egypt

Arab Media, Culture, Egypt, Kuwait, Think Tanks

Gulf Creative Thinkers and Oligarchs Hail Field Marshal Al Sisi……..

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Egyptian official daily Al Ahram quotes a Kuwait newspaper that Generalisimo Field Marshal El Presidente Al Sisi met in Cairo with a delegation of businessmen and “thinkers” from Kuwait.

Now I know we have some “thinkers” back home, but I never knew we had dedicated full-time, 24/7 thinkers who did nothing but think. And what better topic to think of than the greatness of Generalisimo Field Marshal El Presidente Al Sisi?

Mr. A. Al Babtain, a big businessman and president of Al Babtain Institute for “Creativity”, of course led the delegation of businessmen and, er, full-time “thinkers” who like to tag along with businessmen on travels to visit Al Sisi in Egypt.

He, Al the businessman, reportedly did not surprise Generalisimo Field Marshal El Presidente Al Sisi by telling him that the great trust the Egyptian people have shown Generalisimo Field Marshal El Presidente Al Sisi extends to the whole wide wonderful Arab world (although it may not sell in Peoria). That he is universally admired and loved, even if he can’t sing worth a lick. No opinion polls needed, no free and fair elections necessary.

In the spirit of meeting these “thinkers”, Al Sisi must also be thinking something like: “Wow, being president is neat. How else could I get to meet full-time 24/7 Gulf ‘thinkers’ and oligarchs in one meeting“.

Odd, though this Insitute of Creativity. I had thought “thinkers” only thought and never created anything besides thoughts (and maybe a couple of mundane regular everyday things that I should not mention here).

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Egypt, Espionage, Human Right

Takhabur: a Potent New Orwellian Arab Weapon……….

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Egyptian media can be some of the wildest in the Middle East, bar none, when it comes to toeing the official line. Remember when the once-venerable Al-Ahram, the big banana of Egyptian newspapers, doctored photos of world leader to put Hosni Mubarak at the front? They are doing even more now.

One headline I saw yesterday: “Muslim brothers caught with ‘certificates’ of Takhabur (تخابُر) with Hamas”.  (تخابُر is a broad Arabic word that can have any of several connotations: communicating; contacting; exchanging information).
‘Certificates of Takahbur‘: imagine how far you can go in telling your people how stupid you believe they are, maybe not in so many words. This “Takhabur” in Arabic is a recent twist of the term that Arab regimes (and their controlled media) have been using against their foes and against those they don’t like or suspect.
Takhabur: “communicating, exchanging news or information but also perhaps ideas” or “talking to”. You can get arrested for takhabur with The Onion or with Mad Magazine or with the CIA or the Mossad or Dhahi Khalfan, even with your next door neighbor, if they want to get you.
Anyway, they twist things to make it sound so sinister in a way that some regimes can do with impunity. The Egyptian military regime has even brought the charge of “takhabur” against president Morsi, and he was the president of the country! He was supposed to do “takhabur” with leaders and countries, just like any other head of state! Imagine how much ‘takhabur‘ Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi is doing now with oily princes and potentates? How else could he do his job?

Now they are piling on Caliph Erdogan of Turkey, but that is okay: the Turkish Caliph ensconced in his billion-dollar palace deserves it. Suddenly the Egyptians are strongly pro-Greek on the Cyprus issue and on any other issues that come to their mind. They might even award ancient Troy to the Greeks, again. The Greeks must be amused.
Takhabur. A simple Arabic word has acquired terrifying connotations and meanings in the hands of Arab depots and potentates and their security agents and kangaroo courts. Journalists, former officials, dissidents, and doubters can spend many years in prison because of that word. From the Persian Gulf to the stagnant Nile, from Manama to Cairo, the regimes are using it to get you.
Remember the word: takhabur. Other non-Arab regimes in the Middle East (Iran, Turkey, Kurds, maybe Israel?) also use their own version of it to intimidate, but it sounds so pregnant with meanings and connotations in the Arabic language. So threatening on multiple levels.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Egypt, Human Right, Uncategorized

Great News: Egypt to Export its Expertise in Repression……….

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Egypt’s foreign minister is quoted in local media as asserting that Egypt is keen on transferring her expertise and experience in security issue to “sisterly” countries. He is quoted that Egypt is seeking to enhance the capabilities of “these countries” in matters of “internal security” with the overall goal of serving all our peoples.

Cute. Glad tidings for any Arab people who have not yet been subjected to arbitrary arrests, torture, summary death sentences, midnight knocks on the door, tear gas, and disappearances. If there is any rare Arab people that have not been subject to these, er, official diversions. Egypt has one important thing she can now export: the Sisi type of law and order, which is slightly nastier than Mubarak’s version of law and order.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Yemen

Is Al Sisi Being Pushed into Foreign Military Adventures?………

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“The Associated Press has learned that U.S. Arab allies Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussing the creation of a military pact against Islamic militants, with the possibility of a joint force to intervene around the Middle East. Four Egyptian military officials have confirmed the talks to The Associated Press. They say the alliance would be separate from the U.S.-led air campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. The alliance, they said, could intervene in other extremist hot-spots: Libya, where militants have taken over several cities, and Yemen…………”

Confronting the terrorists of ISIS is one thing: that is facing a danger close to home, with clear intentions to violate many regional states. Going beyond that into the realm of intervention in other countries is a risky proposition. I doubt this group of governments can organize a serious military campaign against an ‘armed’ foe rather than against unarmed civilians.

The Gulf GCC princes and potentates may believe that Egypt can be a formidable military ally that can be used in trouble spots from Libya to Yemen and possibly the Persian Gulf. They are wrong.

On paper that may seem to be true. Egypt has a huge army and some of the best American and other weapons in the region. As does Saudi Arabia and the under-populated United Arab Emirates (where nearly 90% of the population are foreign laborers and expatriates). The military prowess is all on paper: it is an accountant’s military prowess.

The Egyptian military has not been able to reclaim full authority over parts of the Sinai Peninsula, where Islamist Jihadis and various outlaw and trafficker gangs hold sway. They had one experience in outside intervention, in Yemen in the 1960s, and did not perform well. That 1960s army was supposed to be motivated and patriotic. This current Egyptian army is top fat and in reality it serves an entrenched oligarchy that only its top officers can identify with. Its soldiers cannot identify with their political and economic masters and are unlikely to fight effectively on their orders against a tenacious and fierce enemy. Not if their own homeland is not threatened.

Generalisimo Al Sisi would do well not to allow his military be “rented” by the princes and potentates to fight their wars. He would only get stuck in a quagmire in Yemen, again, or in some other place. Yemen especially comes to mind, because this week Saudi royal media have been quoting Egyptian “experts” warning about the Houthis and the Bab El-Mandab Strait. Ironically, both Egypt and Saudi Arabia have had miserable military experiences in Yemen in the past half century, the Saudis against the same Houthis a few years ago.

The Al-Nahayan brothers who rule the UAE have no military experience except maybe carrying Saudi baggage in Bahrain. But they also have some of the most expensive Western weapons and lethal toys that money can buy, and they may be deceived into thinking that is sufficient to wage real warfare against determined enemies.

They need bodies, reliable bodies that they think can wage war. Something like a huge army of mercenaries that is an efficient fighting machine. They may think they have found it in Egypt. I have no doubt that they are wrong.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Kuwait

The Genius of Generalisimo Al Sisi…………

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The Kuwait daily Al-Rai quotes Generalisimo Field Marshal President Al Sisi of Egypt talking about unusual Muslim Brotherhood plots. In a speech, Al Sisi claimed that the ruling Muslim Brotherhood planned to change the Sinai Peninsula into an Islamist Emirate and separate it from Egypt.
This can be funny under other circumstances, just the usual Arab leader abusing what he believes is the utter stupidity of his people. It would be funny, if there were not so many people inside Egypt and outside who actually believe this ‘stuff’.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Egypt, Media

Egypt Newspapers Set to be Tamed, and Fast……….

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Egyptian newspaper editors and chiefs have never been a brave lot. They usually follow the official line, whoever is in power. The only recent exception has been during the Morsi era of one year when the Egyptian media had its freest period of the modern era. Criticism and disrespect of Morsi was rampant and allowed freely during that one year. Imagine: the freest era of journalism was under the brief Muslim Brotherhood MB rule. That might have changed if the MB rule had continued, but we will never know that for certain.

Recently Egyptian newspaper editors have issued a pledge to refrain from publishing criticism the regime of Al Sisi. They said criticism would support “extremists”. A group of 350n reporters issued their own petition against this attempt to further cub freedom of the press.
Why do I feel that a lot of Egyptian journalists will be seeking new jobs soon? Of course they can always say that they were merely “advising” their bosses………..

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt, History, Media

Gosh, Al Sisi! Comparing the Generalisimo to Caesar and Jefferson and Steinbeck……..

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“No longer tainted as a former general who ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mr. Sisi was finally recognized by the international community as a respected statesman and regional leader, Egyptian commentators say. Mr. Sisi even “changed the way presidents make speeches at the United Nations,” the talk show host Amr Adeeb proclaimed, showing a video clip of Mr. Sisi ending his speech late last month by chanting his nationalist campaign slogan. “Long Live Egypt!” Mr. Sisi said to what Egyptian viewers saw as raucous applause from the assembled world leaders. “A thing of genius,” Mr. Adeeb declared, suggesting the assembly had consecrated a marriage. “Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was the groom of the United Nations, and Egypt was the bride.”……………..”

Gosh, what a gushing article in the New York Times. Cute and breathtaking: you’d think the Times writer (David D. Kirkpatrick) was a teenage girl and Al Sisi was Justin Bieber or One Direction.

Rarely do I see so much bullshit packed into one article in a major reputable American newspaper. This ‘Professor Fahmy’ of the American University at Cairo he mentions here is apparently typical of many academics in the stagnant Egypt of the past four decades. Perhaps most of them, he is a “kisser”, and don’t ask “kisser of what”. It doesn’t matter as long as it is in power. They did it to Mubarak and his cronies for decades, and now they are joining the cult of Kim Jong Al Sisi.

The man was “elected” with the usual Arab 97+% of the vote, under the guns of army tanks. Only the sort-of-president of Yemen Hadi Al Zombie outvoted him with 99.8% of the vote in 2012, but that was through a Qatari-Saudi-UAE organized transfer of power. Al Sisi had one hapless opponent, almost acting as a shill, and the voter turnout was  reported by critics to have ranged between single digits or at best in the low twenties.

As for comparing Al Sisi to Nasser, it is equivalent to comparing Pope Alexander Borgia to St. Peter. Like comparing some Saudi prince or king  to one of the early Caliphs. Like comparing Ted Cruz to Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson. Like comparing Sarah Palin, with or without the proverbial lipstick, to Jeanne d’Arc. Like comparing one of these cheap N Y Times or Amazon bestseller thriller novelists to Steinbeck or Stendhal. I can go on, apparently……..

Had he ever been in a war, in any capacity, they’d probably compare him to Bonaparte (Ante-Waterloo) and Eisenhower and Zhukov. I forgot Julius Caesar who ruled Egypt for six centuries after his death.

End of this rant……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Politics, Education, Egypt, Saudi Arabia

Arab King May be the Most Educated Human in the World……..

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Egypt‘s Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi has issued a farman decision bestowing an Honorary Doctoral (Honorary Internatonal) degree in Humanities on Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The degree will be from Al Azhar University, at no cost to the king. Egyptian media report that the Al Azhar Board took the unanimous decision to award the king his new degree based on his services to Islamic and Arab causes, and his “principled” stances regarding the recent historic events in Egypt.

Among those principled stances was the king’s famous claim during the January-February 2011 Tahrir uprising that the protesters were “trouble-makers and agents of foreign powers“. That uprising forced Mr. Mubarak out of power, elected Mohammed Morsi, then brought Generalisimo Al Sisi to power in a military coup d’etat, financed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

This new award/degree probably makes the Saudi king among the most educated in the world, at least among humans. On paper at least. So far he has received degrees from several (possibly all) Saudi colleges, from Pakistani and Indonesian and Malaysian and other Arab and Muslim colleges. Without so much as a GRE or Quals Exams or Dissertation or the rest of the bureaucratic steps needed by mortals. The guy is loaded with knowledge. He has never received any degree from the favorite military academy of Arab kings and potentates, Sandhurst in Britain. But no fear, that can be remedied in exchange for a small nominal weapons deal.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Elections, Arab Politics, Bahrain, Egypt, Elections, GCC, U.S. Foreign Policy

Arab Nursery Rhyme Transition to Democracy: Mary Mary Quite Contrary…….

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Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells
And pretty maids all in a row.

“Deputy spokesperson of the United States State Department Marie Harf said in a press briefing on Monday that Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is leading the country’s democratic transition, despite recent criticism by the US of Egypt’s human rights record and the US holding some of its aid to Egypt pending democratic reform……….”

Also sprach U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf. But in fairness what else can the lady say?
Transitioning to democracy is a gentrified term to use now for Arab dictatorships and absolute tribal family rule. Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi is transitioning Egypt to democracy, hence he is still part of an axis of goodness, almost certified by Good Housekeeping. In the process he has overthrown a freely-elected president, the man who promoted him to defense minister, and thrown him in prison with a dozen or so trumped up charges. In the process his security forces and his soldiers have massacred a few thousand civilian protesters, the largest such massacre in modern Egyptian history. In the process his security have arrested and thrown in prison tens of thousands of people who disagree with him. In the process he has got himself “elected” against a hapless tool, with more than 97% of the vote (in a very low turnout election). In the process his courts have sentenced almost two thousand protesters to death, and the toll keeps rising.

By the same standards we can also argue that the Al Saud absolute tribal princes are transitioning the Arabian Peninsula toward democracy. We can also say that the vile absolute tribal rulers of Bahrain are transitioning the captive island of imported mercenaries and teargas toward democracy. We could have said the same about Mu’ammar Gaddafi and we can say it abut Bashar Al Assad. Etc , etc, etc………
Ten, twenty, thirty years from now, they will still be transitioning their peoples toward democracy. With a lot of help from their soldiers and their security agents, and in some cases with their imported mercenaries.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Islam and Elections, Libya, MENA, North Africa, UAE

UAE Pivoting: Brothers Karamazov to the Shores of Tripoli……..

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“From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country’s battles
In the air, on land, and sea………” USMC Hymn

“Egypt and the United Arab Emirates were responsible for carrying out two series of air strikes in the past week on armed Islamist factions in Tripoli, Libya, US officials said on Monday. The officials said the two Arab countries used aircraft based in Egypt. Earlier the New York Times reported that the two US allies acted without consulting Washington………..”

If you have a choice between believing Egyptian (and UAE) officials and American officials, whom would you believe? I’d take my chances with U.S. officials, since they are subject to public and media scrutiny (er, ahem, not that they would lie even if they could get away with it). Besides, Egyptian officials are notorious serial liars, possibly the lying-est in the history of the Middle East.

But the United Arab Emirates flexing military muscle in the MENA region (with help from their little man in Egypt)? The private fiefdom of the Bin Zayed Al Nahayan brothers? As someone who is rude and crude (which I am not) would exclaim: the UnitedFuckingEmirates? The funny country that is 87% composed of imported temporary foreigner laborers and reportedly relies on a Blackwater-advised foreign mercenary force of Colombians and White South Africans and Australians and others to keep order? That is a shocker.

The Al Nahayan brothers are pivoting from the Persian Gulf toward North Africa now. They helped mess up Bahrain by joining the Al Saud invasion to crush the popular uprising and prevent the liberation of Bahrain in 2011. They joined up with French pop-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy and John McCain and NATO bombers to help liberate Libya in the same year. They helped muddy the waters in Syria in 2011 and convert a popular uprising into a Wahhabi-financed and armed Jihadi terrorist campaign. There are some reports of a sisterly role for the brothers in the rise of ISIS and its Caliphate in Iraq and Syria and back to Iraq.
What Mr. Vladimir Putin should worry about now is if the brothers decide to pivot to the Ukraine and maybe seek to liberate the Crimea. Mr. Obama may have to worry about the brothers Al Nahayan pivoting toward the far east, thus complicating his own efforts at pivoting toward the arms of his Chinese business partners and Kim-Jong Un.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum