Category Archives: GCC

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, US Foreign Policy, Yemen

Electoral Democratic Joke: Yemen’s 99.8% Landslide, a F–king Big Deal………………

   

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The election results were typically Arab: the vice president of Ali Saleh, the man supported by the Saudis and the potentates of the GCC and the democratic Western powers won. He won with a modest 99.8% of the vote. He was the only candidate. Even Ahmadinejad won less than 60% in that disputed 2009 election in Iran (but Ahmadcinejad was not appointed by the Saudis and the West). It was like electing the King of Saudi Arabia or the ruler of Bahrain or Abu Dhabi. Now that is, to quote Joe Biden, a fucking big deal!

Here is what I posted about it before the vote results:
“Yemenis, including Tawakkol Karman, winner of the 2011 Nobel peace prize, go to the polls. Tuesday’s election is the fruit of a US-backed deal that eased President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in exchange for immunity from prosecution over the alleged killing of hundreds of protesters. Saleh’s deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is the only candidate………..”

Tawakkol Karman: “This is a day of holy joy!”
This is a Nobel Laureate speaking.

Is the lady out of her blinking fundamentalist mind? Had she been chewing qat? A day of ”holy joy”? So they were forced by the neighboring potentates to vote for one man, maintaining the power of the old regime.

The GCC, with Western support, have saddled the Yemeni people with a continuation of the dictatorship. Of course the potentates of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oligarchies would not want free choice for Yemen. So they have an election with one candidate! One candidate! Did anyone expect the Saudi princes to deliver democracy and freedom to the Yemeni people? When they refuse any mention of it to their own people? When you can vanish if you so much as mention freedom in Riyadh? And they call that travesty freedom? No wonder the Huthis and the Southerners are ready to resume their battle for whatever the hell it is they are seeking.
The Saudis, led by Field Marshal Khaled bin Sultan bin Technocrat bin Rommel were defeated militarily in Yemen. Their most expensively armed military was defeated by a ragtag tribal group armed with WWI and WWII weapons. Now they are trying to win their counter-revolution by diplomacy. It won’t work.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

A Bahrain Think Tank and the Joys of Tribal Wahhabi Liberalism…………

    

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“Manama: Countries keen on boosting cultural and intellectual relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries should appreciate that they are dealing with a new elite of thinkers, the head of Bahrain’s main think- tank has said. “They have received their education in the world’s outstanding universities and have become remarkable contributors in strategic studies and international studies,” Dr Mohammad Abdul Gaffar, head of the Bahrain Centre for Strategic, International and Energy Studies and Special Adviser to King Hamad Eisa Al Khalifa, said. “This new elite of intellectuals from the GCC states are different from the previous generation at the cultural and educational levels Britain dealt with during the early stages of the formation of modern Gulf states…………..”

Oh, yes: a special adviser to King Hamad al-Khalifa, the acting Saudi governor of Bahrain. I suspect
 that by “new elite of thinkers” he means the Wahhabi tribal faux-liberals who are filling Gulf media and academic institutions with writings and opinions of glorification of the Saudi princes and their sidekicks in Bahrain and around the region.
By
 “new elite of intellectuals” he is probably also referring to the fundamentalist tribal alliances that dominate whatever passes for politics on the Gulf these days. The only real politics in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are done in prison and in exile. The only true politics in Bahrain are done at the people’s protests and barricades and in prison and in exile (with armed regime thugs and imported mercenaries playing the incumbents). As for the Wahhabi “so-called” intellectuals, in some places they correctly call them tribal and sectarian sycophants.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia

Honey and Onion: Do Saudi Princes Trust Qataris? Do Qataris Trust Saudi Princes?………….

 

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“A secret meeting was held between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh last month to discuss Saudi Arabia’s concerns over the “smuggling of Iranian arms to Hezbollah by sea,” according to an article published on February 15 in the German newspaper, Die Welt. The article stated that “the faltering of Syria, and Iran’s attempt to procure other ways to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah prompted a perturbed Saudi Arabia to hold a secret meeting with other members of the GCC in the capital, Riyadh, on January 18.” GCC members – apart from Qatar, which was excluded from the meeting – also discussed the threats made by senior Iranian officials to close down the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically important route linking Gulf countries to the outside world. The newspaper obtained data from “Western intelligence agencies” and mentioned that the oil-rich kingdom refrained from inviting Qatar to the secret congregation since “it is not reliable on issues related to Iran.”………….”

Also sprach al-Akhbar from Beirut.
The mistrust between Qataris and Saudis runs deep, too deep for the usual public platitudes that are mouthed at GCC meetings to cover up. During the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia sponsored a plot to overthrow the current Emir of Qatar. Saudi security officers directly participated, and several of these Saudis were arrested and imprisoned in Doha after the coup failed. They were not released until about two years ago. There were also reports that members of some local tribes that have Saudi roots and possible divided loyalties were implicated in that plot.
The Qataris fancy their own independent foreign policy. They have moved away from the Saudis and cultivated good relations with the Mullahs in Iran, as have the Omanis. They also have hosted the US Central Command, as another way to keep the Saudi danger at bay (real and near Saudi danger not the far away Iranian danger).
The Qataris and Saudis had started a honeymoon of sorts when the Arab uprisings started a year ago. Now this honeymoon may be over. The month of honey (shahr Asal) may becoming the month of onion (shahr bassal). An Arab saying, it sounds much better in Arabic and it rhymes. Onion and homey rhyme, but only in Arabic. Go figure.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Yemen’s Funny Old-Style Non Election, a Nobel for Qat……..

   

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“Yemenis, including Tawakkol Karman, winner of the 2011 Nobel peace prize, go to the polls. Tuesday’s election is the fruit of a US-backed deal that eased President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power in exchange for immunity from prosecution over the alleged killing of hundreds of protesters. Saleh’s deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is the only candidate………..”

Tawakkol Karman: “This is a day of holy joy!”
This is a Nobel Laureate speaking.

Is the lady out of her blinking fundamentalist mind? Had she been chewing qat? A day of ”holy joy”? So they were forced by the neighboring potentates to vote for one man, maintaining the power of the old regime.

The GCC, with Western support, have saddled the Yemeni people with a continuation of the dictatorship. Of course the potentates of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oligarchies would not want free choice for Yemen. So they have an election with one candidate! One candidate! Did anyone expect the Saudi princes to deliver democracy and freedom to the Yemeni people? When they refuse any mention of it to their own people? When you can vanish if you so much as mention freedom in Riyadh? And they call that travesty freedom? No wonder the Huthis and the Southerners are ready to resume their battle for whatever the hell it is they are seeking.
The Saudis, led by Field Marshal Khaled bin Sultan bin Technocrat bin Rommel were defeated militarily in Yemen. Their most expensively armed military was defeated by a ragtag tribal group armed with WWI and WWII weapons. Now they are trying to win their counter-revolution by diplomacy. It won’t work.
Cheers
mhg


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Bahrain, GCC, Human Right

Trafficking in Bahrain: Forcing Foreign Laborers to Demonstrate for Regime…….

 

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“Some Bangladeshi expatriates in Bahrain say they have been forced to take part in pro-government rallies. They have told the BBC that their enforced participation has provoked retaliatory attacks from the country’s majority Shia population. A Bangladeshi community leader said that two expatriate workers had been killed on Tuesday and shops owned by Bangladeshis were attacked. The authorities in Bahrain have not commented on the claims. There are 100,000 Bangladeshi expatriate workers in Bahrain, more than 300,000 Indian expatriate workers, 60,000 Pakistanis and about 30,000 Nepalis. India and Nepal both say that their citizens are safe, but advised them to keep a low profile…………”

Only a minority of the citizens of Bahrain support the regime now. To get enough people, enough bodies to demonstrate for the regime, to show on television and on You Tube, they need to tap the huge pool of foreign laborers. They need to coerce Asian and other laborers to go out and look excited abut the al-Khalifa shaikhs, a tough act. It is almost a type of human trafficking, to add to that other type of trafficking.
They already depend on Asian mercenaries (as well as some from Jordana and Syria and other Arab states) to control Manama. Now they have resorted to exploiting the Asian “civilians” for propaganda purposes, putting them in harm’s way.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Egypt, GCC, Human Right, Iran, Latin America, US Foreign Policy

IRI, NDI, and Selective Democracy in Targeted Places: Tegucigalpa to Cairo and Manama……….

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“The IRI is an international arm of the US Republican party, so anyone with the stomach to watch the Republican presidential debates might doubt whether this would be a “democracy-promotion” organization. But a look at some of their recent adventures is enough to set the record straight: in 2004, the IRI played a major role in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Haiti. In 2002, the head of the IRI publicly celebrated the short-lived military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Venezuela. The IRI was also working with organizations and individuals that were involved in the coup. In 2005, the IRI was involved in an effort to promote changes in Brazil’s electoral laws that would weaken the governing Workers party of then President Lula da Silva. Most recently, in 2009, there was a military coup against the democratically elected government of Honduras. The Obama administration did everything it could to help the coup succeed, and supported “elections” in November of 2009 to legitimize the coup government. The rest of the world – including even the Organization of American States (OAS), under pressure from South American democracies – refused to send observers. This was because of the political repression during the campaign period: police violence, raiding of independent media, and the forced exile of political opponents – including the country’s democratically elected president. But the IRI and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) – its Democratic party-linked counterpart – went there to legitimate the “election”……….The IRI and NDI are core grantees of the National Endowment for Democracy…………...”

I bet there are no offices for either IRI or NDI in places like Amman (Jordan), Manama (Bahrain), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Abu Dhabi (UAE), or Tehran (Iran), and all for the same reasons.
You’d think the Saudi and Emirati and Bahraini potentates, with whom some Western (American and British) leaders profess a communality of values (?), would welcome these democracy-advocating groups. Otherwise, what are those hundred billion dollar weapons deals for, except to make sure democracy survives in these places? Yet all this tells me that now there is much more freedom in Egypt than in those places (any democracy is more than none). More than there was in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) when they went to Honduras allegdly to rubber-stamp the coup d’etat.
All this does not justify these Americans being held by Egyptian authorities and tried. There has been no ‘crime’. I believe they ought to be freed: there should be no restrictions on advocacy in either Cairo or Tehran or Riyadh.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Gulf states, Iran, Khamenei, Muslims, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

On Arab Uprisings and Crazy Illusory Iranian Ideas, Salafi Money vs. Salafi Opium………

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“The recent popular uprisings and revolutions in the region and massive popular protests throughout the world have been inspired by the Iranian nation’s Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said……. In a statement released on the occasion of the 33rd anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the IRGC said that Iran’s revolution has presented the discourse of the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian nation to human communities, Muslim nations in particular. “The Islamic Awakening and popular revolutions in North Africa and the Middle-East and collapse of tyrants and dictators in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen and, God-willing, in other lands and also the waves of awakening in the heart of Europe and the United States and the confrontation between Anti-Capitalism (Occupy) movements with criminal and Zionist rulers in the West are undoubtedly among the achievements of the Islamic Revolution and the Iranian nation’s leadership in promoting awareness (of the other nations) and in the campaign against the arrogant powers,“ the statement said……………..”

Maybe
the Iranian media publicize these incredible reports as propaganda, which is okay, it is normal. The danger is if Iran’s leaders actually believe this stuff they publish, that the Arab revolts look to imitate an Iranian system. Yet that is against all the evidence. The rebellion in Egypt led to a Muslim Brother and Salafi parliament. Salafis are the sworn enemies of Shi’a Iran and of all Shi’as anywhere. Salafis hate Shi’as and Jews and Methodists and Hindus and Mormons and Episcopalians and even pagans. Salafis worship Mohammed Bin Abdulwahhab the Nejdi cleric (not the late Egyptian singer Mohamed Abdelwahab). They also nearly worship Saudi princes (especially the Gulf Salafis do). They agree with the Iranian mullahs on one thing (in addition to the Five Pillars of Islam): they both hate and fear Barbie Doll.
In all other Arab states the uprisings were started by young secularists but were hijacked by Salafis or other fundamentalists who are also not eager to have an Iranian style system. In fact, the Salafis admire the Saudi system more than any other system in the whole wide world (well, the Taliban are a little more puritan now than the Saudis, but they have no money to give away; they only have opium).

I think I shall tweet Ayatollah Khamenei (I follow him on Twitter) and correct this Iranian misunderstanding before they go too far with it. All this does is terrify the Saudi potentates who “might” be naive enough to believe it, then they will redouble their efforts to get their American and Israeli allies to attack Iran. It also makes them crack down harder on the oppressed people of Bahrain and Qatif.
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, North Africa, UAE

Casablanca in Abu Dhabi: Kiss of Death in UAE, of Potentates and Cheeks………

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“You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by……“  Dooley Wilson (Casablanca)

“A teenaged Emirati boy who kissed two sisters was sentenced yesterday to serve time in juvenile detention. MA, 15, was charged with breaking into another’s home and sexual assault after the father of two Emirati sisters, FS and SS, both 13, reported him to the police after finding the boy at his house. After an investigation, it was determined MA did not break into the house, but was let in by the sisters, who he was dating at the same time. FS and SS were referred to court with MA on the same charges…….. Both sisters refused to answer the judge’s questions. They neither denied nor confessed to the charges. The girls were to be delivered to their parents for discipline. The detention centre will determine when MA’s term should end, based on his readiness and whether he is disciplined enough to be released. He can be kept in custody until he turns 18……………”

That kid would have been better off kissing another guy, or some potentates, or a goat for that matter. The potentates in our region love to be kissed (talking male potentates here). I see the al-Nahayan shaikhs kissing each other, and others, all the time (never seen one kiss a real goat, though). I also see many others kissing the potentates on the cheeks, both types of cheeks. After three years in the slammer, the kid ought to learn to save it.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

Obama and Clinton and Hypocrisy on Democracy: Weapons of Repression to Bahrain…………

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“President Barack Obama’s administration has been delaying its planned $53 million arms sale to Bahrain due to human rights concerns and congressional opposition, but this week administration officials told several congressional offices that they will move forward with a new and different package of arms sales — without any formal notification to the public. The congressional offices that led the charge to oppose the original Bahrain arms sales package are upset that the State Department has decided to move forward with the new package. The opposition to Bahrain arms sales is led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), and also includes Senate Foreign Relations Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee chairman Robert Casey (D-PA), Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL), and Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), and Marco Rubio (R-FL). Wyden and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) have each introduced a resolution in their respective chambers to prevent the U.S. government from going through with the original sale, which would have included 44 armored, high-mobility Humvees and over 300 advanced missiles. The State Department has not released details of the new sale, and Congress has not been notified through the regular process.……….”


The ruling al-Khalifa clan in Bahrain have been masters of deception. For years they managed to cultivate the image of a cosmopolitan liberal monarchy, even as they applied a system of discriminatory apartheid against a majority of their people. They were aided in that by some bought and paid-for European expatriates (especially Brits) as well and slick public relations campaigns. All this was exposed in recent years as the people rose demanding their rights. The whole façade finally fell apart last spring when the regime and its imported mercenaries failed to crush the people’s uprising. It had to invite an invasion by foreign (Saudi) forces to help repress the protests. They are still repressing and killing people, even as they fill Western media with talk of reform.

The Obama administration has also learned to master deception and double standards. While they talk of freedom and democracy in, say, Iran and Libya and Syria, they turned their back on the people of Bahrain. They have been deathly silent about Saudi Arabia, the absolutely most repressive regime in the Middle East, possibly in the world after North Korea. It should not have been surprising that the Obama administration planned to sell weapons to the al-Khalifa clan to help them crush the newly resurgent protests. There was some opposition in Congress, from legislators in both parties. That is how the Obama administration hit upon this trick for selling the same weapons of repression to Bahrain, but in several smaller packages that can bypass congressional approval. A masterful piece of trickery, almost Clintonian, something the al-Khalifa would do, and have done.
Change? As far as the Middle East is concerned, the change Mr. Obama once claimed is nothing new, certainly nothing Arabs and Muslims can believe in. Unless they are repressive absolute tribal dynasties with deep pockets.
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Iran, OPEC, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Iran Feels the Oil Blockade Heat but Denies it: Back to 1980-88 in the Gulf?……….

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“Ahmadinejad said during a speech at a gathering of the personnel of Sarcheshmeh Copper Complex in the city of Sarcheshmeh, the southeastern province of Kerman, on Thursday. The European Union formally imposed an oil embargo on Iran and agreed to a freeze on the assets of the Central Bank of Iran on Monday, but existing contracts will be honored until July 1. “The West must be aware that the Iranian nation… does not need them. You impose embargo on Iran’s oil but do not see that the United States has not bought oil from us for 30 years, but nothing happened, and Iran followed its path with dignity,” Ahmadinejad said, addressing European countries. He stated that the sanctions are futile……….” Mehr News

Yet this next news item seems to contradict Ahmadinejad’s assertion that the sanctions will not hurt. He is right in one respect: the sanctions are unlikely to hurt the regime. They always hurt the people:

“A top Iranian diplomat has expressed Tehran’s displeasure over an announcement by certain Persian Gulf Arab states to replace Iran’s oil exports, saying Iran will consider such a move as “unfriendly”. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iranian deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, made the remarks during a meeting with the undersecretary of the Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Khalid Al-Jarallah, in Kuwait City on Thursday. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi last week said that his country will make up for any shortfall in world oil supply caused by sanctions against Iran. ………” Mehr News

The Iranians must have a sense of having been here before, a sense of déjà vu (all over again). During the utterly senseless and futile 1980-99 war, their petroleum facilities were bombed and they were under an American economic siege. Not only did the Saudis pick up the slack and expanded their market share, other Gulf states also sold their own oil for Ba’athist Iraq’s account (Saddam’s exports were severely curtailed).
The Iranians resorted to the “tankers war’ to punish other Gulf exporters, which led to some naval skirmishes with the U.S. navy. The Iranians did not do well in those skirmishes, had some of their speedboats and offshore oil platforms destroyed. The lowest point came on July 3rd 1988, when the USS Vincennes shot down a civilian Iranian airliner (Iran Air 655) over the Gulf, killing nearly 300 civilians. The ceasefire was declared in August.
Had those passengers been Westerners (like the Pan Am 103), and had the guilty party been Libya (like the Pan Am 103), the Iranian victims would have received more than a billion dollars from Qaddafi (just like the Pan Am 103 victims). All posthumously of course (just like the Pan Am 103 victims).
Cheers
mhg


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