Category Archives: France

Culture, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, UAE

French Connections: Egyptian Bureaucrat is Excited about King Abdullah Winning Shaikh Zayed Prize …………

      

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Egyptian media report that Shaikh Doctor Mohammed Mukhtar Gom’a, Egyptian minister of Islamic Awqaf seems excited about the new prize won by the Saudi King Abdullah. He has congratulated his Majesty King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, Servant of the Two Holy Shrines, for winning the Shaikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahayan Prize and being picked as the Cultural Personality of our Universe, via Abu Dhabi.

 

The minister, was fresh from a visit to an event in Paris about Mecca. He is quoted that he has personally told French president Francois Hollande, in Paris, that Egypt shall continue on the road to cultural exchange and that Egypt fully supports the Saudi war on the triple threats of terrorism, democracy, and free speech. No doubt M. Hollande was ecstatic to hear that, perhaps he was inspired, and who knows what he did after that: after all, he is in Paris which is neither Cairo nor Riyadh. If you get my drift.
The Shaikh Doctor said his position is reciprocation for the strong Saudi support for Egypt in all international forums and fora and wherever else the wise king deems appropriate. (He did not, however, add that his position would be different otherwise).
 
Shaikh Doctor Gom’a did not mention if he ever met and exchanged views on culture, terrorism, and weapons deals with the top French first ladies of recent times: Segolyne Royal, Valerie Trierweiler, or Julie Gayet.
I almost forgot to mention the real biggie (politically speaking): Marine Le Pen…….

Cheers
mhg

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Arab League, France, History, Iran, U.S. Politics

Leaders in Retirement from France to America to Libya to Outer Space: So Where is Ahmadinejad?………

      

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So whatever happened to Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Where is the favorite bête noire of the Western world for the past decade? The favorite son of New York City every late September? He has gone awfully and uncharacteristically quiet. Almost like any former U.S. president, with the exception of Clinton. We mostly know where former leaders are in the West (not necessarily where they should be) and what they are doing (or trying to do):


  • Write s book or two (memoirs to make a lot of money and explain their lousy policies.



  • Give speeches and lectures (mainly to make a lot of money).



  • Start some institute (to stay out of trouble, like Clinton).



  • Appear a lot on TV (like Clinton).



  • Appear a lot on media wherever someone interviews you (like Clinton.



  • Have a lot of fun, and I mean fun (like Clinton).



  • Start work on a (Walter Mitty?) presidential library. All US presidents do that since it is funded by the public and through donations.



  • In France former presidents don’t have time to waste on libraries. They must quickly start collecting lawyers for the upcoming inevitable investigations and possible trials for financial corruption. From accepting cash bribes to accepting diamonds from West African dictators.This has always been the case after de Gaulle.


  • Russia hasn’t had a former president for almost two decades. So we don’t really know what happens to them. Wait, I know: they become prime minister and are recycled again through the merry-go-round.



  • Start collecting money quickly by working as adviser for foreign potentates and unsavory dictators as well as working as a lobbyist for corporations. Tony Blair of Britain is the only one that fits this bill so far: Churchill and Wilson and Thatcher would not think of it, the fools.



  • In Lebanon, nobody gives a f-ck what a former president says or does. Come to think of it, in Lebanon nobody gives a f-ck what a current president says or does.



  • In Syria and Egypt and Algeria and Libya and other Arab countries there is no such thing as a former president. If they don’t kill him quickly, they put him on trial for real or (mostly) trumped up charges. They end up hanging him or keeping him in prison for life. Probably serves them right in most cases.



  • Retire to the French or Italian Riviera (usually former kings are entitled to do that).



  • Host a talk show?



  • Die quickly.


Mr. Ahmadinejad has done none of the above, yet. He may start teaching at the university again. I did read somewhere that he is pushing a new college (no, not for Holocaust Studies and Verification). Then there is the Iranian Space Program and the promise to send a human into space within the next two years. He has expressed a desire to think about it.
Too bad no Arab country has a manned space program. I wish they all did, the whole Arab League from Syria down to Riyadh and through Somalia: imagine the possibilities. One can dream………..
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, France, Iran, Syria, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

Syria: the Strange Ban Ki-Moon Geneva Rollercoaster Ride, Hollande’s Polygamy………..

      

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A strange series of events regarding the Syrian civil war this past weekend:

  • Late weekend United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon gives a presser and invites Iran to attend the Geneva talks on Syria, surprising some of the “Friends of the Syrian Opposition”.
  • The Obama Administration professes surprise and sort of objects strongly, only sort of.
  • Saudi princes and other potentates object strongly but not openly.
  • Their proxy Mr. Al Jarba objects (he calls himself, I think rather presumptuously, @PresidentJarba on Twitter). Opposition groups and militias and gangs and kidnappers threaten to boycott the meeting and keep Assad in power for five more years.
  • Mufti Shaikh Al Al objects, or he should if he knows what is good for him. But he declines to issue a fatwa.
  • The Israelis probably object on the principle that whatever helps Iran is bad for them, and vice versa. Or maybe I just think so, my knee-jerk reaction.
  • Al Qaeda and its Syrian fronts also object, or so I assume. 
  • Francois Hollande of France probably also objects, as does his current main squeeze, his former main squeeze, and his future main squeezes (the French can be more polygamous than we can be, and often they are, but they don’t admit it).
  • My suspicious mind is almost certain that the prime minister of Bahrain (44 or so years in office and going) also objects strongly through his corpulent foreign minister who is also his nephew or cousin. I still can’t figure out WTF he has got to do with all this.
  •  
  • So, guess what happens next? Bingo! Ban Ki-Moon suddenly implodes: he discovers overnight that maybe Iran should not attend Geneva. He withdraws his invitation for Iran to the Geneva meeting on Syria. A dis-invitation under pressure.
  • The Iranians, who would love to attend, act as if they are not interested in attending. They go further: after being dis-invited they claim that that they would not attend a meeting
    that imposes conditions and prerequisites on them.
  • Saudi semi-official Alarabiya headlines that now the Syrian ‘opposition’ groups will attend Geneva, some of them for the talks, others to buy good Swiss chocolate at duty-free prices. Actually they would attend or not if and when their Saudi bosses tell them to.
  • End of the story for now, until the next Syria meeting later this year. Or maybe sometime next year, or the year after.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, France, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Vice President of Syrian National Coalition: SNC to Attend Assad’s Funeral in Montreux………

      

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“The main Syrian opposition group in exile promised on Saturday that it will not “compromise” its principles after it finally decided to attend the peace talks in Switzerland next week. “We will go to Geneva 2 without compromising any principles of our revolution,” Ahmed al-Jarba, head of the Syrian National Coalition, told reporter in a press conference in Istanbul. Jarba said that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime will “enter its funeral,” when attending the conference……………”

Mr. Jarba is going to Geneva because he was told to do so by his foreign bosses. He can’t help using Baathist jargon (mainly Iraqi Baathist jargon like the talk about ‘funerals’, etc)) when talking about the regime, but that comes from a lifetime of growing up listening to them.
 
He now calls himself ‘President Jarba’ on his Twitter account @PresidentJarba), something that might piss off a certain Saudi prince as well as Bashar Al-Assad and many opposition militia commanders. He is actually the vice president of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), representing only some of the Syrian opposition, especially part of the Saudi faction, but hardly all of it. Everyone knows that the SNC has a king and a president, neither of whom is named Jarba. That the king of the Syrian National Coalition is named Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, that the ‘president’ of SNC is Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

Bandar’s lifelong ambition now is to liberate Syria for Saudi-style freedom and democracy and tolerance and human rights. That might be opposite to the Iranian and Russian ambition which is also to keep Syria for their own style of freedom and democracy and human rights. Both goals are also different from the ambition of French president Francois Hollande who doesn’t give a rat’s derrière about Syrian freedom but whose goal is to keep the Saudis buying weapons and other goods from socialist France in the name of freedom and democracy and human rights, as well as ‘liberté, égalité, infidélité’.
All this means that the Syrian people are now trapped into an unprecedented sectarian confessional regional proxy war, which means they are now truly screwed, more than ever.

BTW: don’t hold your breath about Geneva (actually Montreux). There will be no agreement of course; it is a place to see and to be seen. Perhaps there may be only a deal to meet again in, say, six months which will be extended to nine or twelve months.
Cheers
mhg

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France, Health, Palestine

Will the Really Dead Yasser Arafat Please Stand Up, If He is Really Dead……..

      

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“French investigators have concluded in a report that Yasser Arafat died of natural causes and ruled out the possibility that he was poisoned, a source told Al Jazeera. “The analysis cannot lead us to affirm that Arafat died of polonium 210 poisoning,” reads the report, according to the source, who has seen it. The report comes to the same conclusion the French reached in 2004 – that Arafat died of a brain hemorrhage and an intestinal infection. According to the forensic report presented in Paris to Suha Arafat, the widow of the late Palestinian leader, and her lawyer, Saad Djabbar, French investigators found traces of the radioactive element polonium 210, but concluded that Arafat died of natural causes. The French tests, conducted independently and in secret as part of a murder investigation, appear to contradict Swiss findings …………..”

Confusing, n’est-ce pas? I know, it is possible to ‘buy’ test results, especially in Europe. Still, if I have to choose in this case, I would tend to believe the Swiss institutions over the French institutions (and government officials for that matter). Some misguided people suspect that corruption, like interesting sex, was a French invention.
I shall file this under category: WTF.

Cheers
mhg

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France, Israel

Pictorial Hollande and Netanyahu: the Socialist and the Right-Winger, the Red and the Black……

      

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                                                     Don’t they look sincere?

Here are some likely possible captions:

  • Is that a gun in your pocket or are you so glad to see me?
  • WTF? True Love? 
  • Hahaha, your gray roots are showing………
  • Ugh, snails and garlic again! Ugh, Gefilte fish again! 
  • Sarkozy and Obama both said you were an incurable serial liar. But then so was he. 
  • Here we are, all civilized surrounded by “them”.
  • And to think that if you fire in any direction you would drop a savage barbarian.
  • Worse, if you fire a missile in any direction…….. But then you know all about that, don’t you? Well, so do you, Algiers and all that……
  • Tell me. How much are the Saudis buying from you for blocking the nuclear deal?
  • How much are they paying you? We’re not French, we do it for Lebanon……
  • Fuck, get off my toe, you Right-Wing/Left-Wing oaf!

Cheers
mhg

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France, GCC, Iran, Weapons deals

French Fries, Nuclear Fries, Gulf Contract Fries…….

      

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“French or Freedom fries: What’s behind France’s move on Iranian nuclear deal? Far from the political stance that inspired ‘Freedom fries’ 10 years ago, France has aligned itself more with US conservatives in rejecting a ‘sucker’s deal’ on the Iran nuclear issue……………”

The French are always looking for ‘number one’, looking for their own financial interests. The country that devastated parts of the Pacific islands, e.g. Moruroa (Algeria is not in the Pacific) with their nuclear tests until recently have not gone religious. They are  most likely eying their royal Arab allies, the Saudi princes and UAE shaikhs, the ones who bestow fat weapons contracts and other contracts. The French have almost certainly decided to adopt their opposition to a nuclear deal with Iran, to keep that country blockaded and isolated. Look for France to get some new Gulf contracts soon.
They are also probably pissed (in French of course) about the Iranian role in events in Lebanon and Syria, as pissed as their royal Arab partners are.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, France

France is Sober in Bahrain………..

      

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                          This French diplomat in Manama looks sober, I think. Maybe that
                          is why he also looks unhappy, for a Frenchman in Manama.

“France supports the reforms taking place in Bahrain and backs the invitation by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa for a national dialogue as the best means to overcome obstacles and political differences, the French ambassador to Bahrain has said. “Paris also strongly condemns the acts of violence and stresses that terrorism is not a political tool,” Christian Testot said, adding that His Majesty’s call for the national dialogue, launched in February, is a significant step in the history of Bahrain. “We hope that the five coalition parties that have recently suspended their participation in the Dialogue will come back and resume their participation. It is necessary for Bahrainis to find a way to agree because there is no alternative to the dialogue to reach an agreement on a formula that allows the coexistence and satisfaction of all parties no matter how different their views are. Such a goal is achievable only through dialogue,” the ambassador told Bahrain News Agency (BNA)…………….”

To which I add, as I often do when I read a Bahrain BNA report, a hearty and loud: Hahahahahahaha………….

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, France, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Will French Africa-Bashers and Saudi Democrats Invade Syria? How Will they Fare? ……..

      

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“France and Saudi Arabia agreed during a meeting in Paris that the Hezbollah-backed Syrian troops, which defeated the rebels in the strategic town of Qusayr, should not be allowed to repeat the same scenario in province of Aleppo, Al Arabiya correspondent reported Tuesday. The two countries expressed their stance after Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, and the kingdom’s intelligence head, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, met with French officials. While both countries established the need for international measures to help stave off a repeat of the Qusayr battle, France said an international consensus is required before any military operation can take place……………..” Alarabiya (Saudi semi-official network)

France and Saudi Arabia promise there will be no more repeats of Qusayr (or perhaps Qusair as the British seem to prefer it). That means France and Saudi Arabia will guarantee no more military victories for the Syrian regime.
This means one thing: if the US and Europe refuse to join John McCain in invading Syria, then there is an alternative. The French and Saudis will storm Syria, led by Bernard-Henri Levy and the Mufti Shaikh Al. The Saudis, a couple of years after their defeat at the hands of the ragtag Houthi tribal fighters in Yemen, will transfer their occupation forces holding up the regime from Bahrain to Syria. I can’t wait to get a bucket of popcorn, sit back, and watch the show. Forget the Super Bowl: it is Hezbollah and the Syrian regime against the Saudi vice squad and the French Africa-bashers. Maybe the Saudi and Qatari and French forces can be parachuted down behind enemy lines, to join the Free Syrian Salafi Army militias. Before the storming of the beaches.
 
More seriously: there is a strong push in Western capitals for some kind of NATO intervention. The Arab potentates and, er, petroleum intellectuals (of the tribal monarchy type and the Islamist type and the Salafist type) have been pushing for NATO to help liberate Syria, just as it liberated Libya (2011) and Iraq (2003). In the US this push is from the jingoist right (Republicans) and the jingoist left (Democratic warriors are back, twenty years after the fall of Communism). Mr. Obama is in the middle of this: whatever happens, he’ll get the blame when things go wrong, as they surely will.
The problem in Syria is that the rebels do not control any major urban centers that they can call their own. They control parts of Homs and Aleppo, so both sides are close enough for decisive battles to start (of course, these battles may not be so decisive).

Cheers
mhg

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France, Libya, Venezuela

French Double-Speak: BHL and Sarkozy and Chavez and Dictators………

         

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“Leaving aside his anti-Semitism and his dictator allies, why would the left celebrate a man who repressed his people and wrecked the economy? It’s an insult to Venezuelans, says Bernard Henri-Lévy…. The death of Hugo Chávez, followed by his elaborate funeral, has unleashed awave of political idiocy, and thus of disinformation, of a magnitude not seen in some time. I will not dwell—because this much is well known—on Chávez the “friend of the people” whose closest allies were bloody-handed dictators: Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, Fidel Castro, and, formerly, Gaddafi……………”

Also sprach French pop-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy (BHL). ‘Friends of Gaddafi’, says the liberators of Libya and putative liberator of Syria and possibly even Iran and Lebanon.
Only two years ago the friends of Gaddafi were the friends of BHL. Remember Sarkozy and others? As for Chavez being friend of dictators; so is M. Hollande, so was BHL friend Sarkozy. Are the Al Saud and Al Khaifa and Al Nahayan and all the other tribal despots , all friends of France and the various Western governments, democratically-elected leaders? Are the Al Saud, and French leaders, cleaner financially than Castro or Ahmadinejad? Are the Al Saud elected by the people? And this business of confusing anti-Israeli with being anti-Semitic is straight out of the Netanyahu book.

Cheers
mhg

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