Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Plan B for Failed Storm: From Bay of Pigs to Bay of Goats……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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In 1961 the CIA financed, trained, and armed a bunch of Cuban exiles and launched them into Cuba. The goal was to overthrow the revolutionary socialist regime of Fidel Castro. Needless to say, the invasion of Bay of Pigs was a total failure and its failure also deterred other such future attempts. It was a Hail Mary try that apparently did not have the backing of Mary nor of Jesus, not on that day. It did not work.


Now Yemen in the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula is not in the same situation as Cuba in 1961. The Saudis and their rented Sudanese-Moroccan-Senegalese forces are directly bombing and shelling the cities and towns of Yemen. The country itself is fighting several civil wars among its various factions. The Houthis and army units are fighting the Southern Independence Movement as well as Al Qaeda- AQAP- and some tribal elements. The Houthis and the army are also trying to repel the Saudi air and artillery assault (which is supported by Western planning and logistical and intelligence support). Whoever wins, if anyone, will have to fight again against secession in South Yemen.

The air war, mainly one-sided and which has resulted in thousands of casualties, has failed during its first two months. The richest and best equipped force in the Arab world, supported by foreign mercenaries and the strongest world powers, has failed to defeat the poorest and weakest-armed Arab country. Now they are trying to insert the escaped former president Hadi (Bin Zombie) into their new strategy.

They are reported by Arab media as trying to form a Yemeni military force to the east near the Saudi border with Hadramout Province. This force is allegedly Yemeni but commanded by Saudis from across the border. They will try to pass it off as a force loyal to Hadi. That comes after an apparent earlier attempt to land Arab and Yemeni agents into Aden failed.
It is hard to imagine anyone in Yemen being loyal to Hadi, other than maybe his family, not without a price to be paid by the Saudis. Just try landing him down into Sanaa or Aden and the degree of loyalty to him becomes clear. A la Gaddafi in 2011.

Anyway this new Hadramout invasion has signs of desperation all over it, but it is a logical Plan B. It could be inspired by the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Saudis don’t cotton up to pigs, so we can’t call this attempt Bay of Pigs II. It is more appropriate to call it Bay of Goats.
Given that the consensus opinion is that pigs are somewhat smarter than goats, we probably know how this plan will fare.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Genocide, Locust, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Locust Phenomenon Strikes Yemen: Kosher and Halal Desert Delicacy………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“As a result of the fuel shortage, women experiencing complications in childbirth had been turned away, she said, and incubators in the hospital had been turned off. In another case, staff tried to resuscitate a patient experiencing cardiac arrest but could not place him on a ventilator. The patient died. The hospital, like so many others, was also suffering from a lack of vital medical supplies including antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, and blood. The harsh and arbitrary restrictions imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on importing vital supplies, including fuel, have slowed to a trickle the flow of life-saving assistance and basic goods needed for survival. The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has managed to ship some 300,000 liters of fuel and other supplies into the country during the humanitarian ceasefire. But this shipment is only a fraction of the amount needed……………..”

Wahhabism is an unforgiving sect and culture: unforgiving of those who openly criticize its values and palace clerics and those who oppose its princes. It has been this way since its beginning in some remote desert hellhole of Najd in Central Arabia. There are a few new places where the application of this hard Wahhabi tradition comes up again and again:
In Syria and Iraq the uber-Wahhabis of ISIS or DAESH and Nusra chop heads, massacre “others” and enslave women. That is regressive Wahhabi tradition taken to its doctrinal and practical extremes.
In Yemen, the ‘moderate’ Wahhabis and their paid and hired mercenaries from Jordan to Sudan to Morocco are bombing cities and infrastructure (as well as military targets). As if that is not enough: they are also denying the civilian people of Yemen food and medicine and energy. Almost total destruction, literally scorched earth. Sort of like their cousins of ISIS and DAESH are doing in Iraq and Syria.
This is what some people in my hometown on the Gulf (Persian Gulf, not Gulf of Mexico) once called the Locust Phenomenon. The locust (Jarad= جراد) is a voracious greedy critter, something that also used to be a seasonal delicacy food in the old days in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. I believe it is also mentioned in the Old Testament as food, so it is as kosher as it is halal. It is known to be a destructive extremist: it destroys all crops in its way. That is precisely what they are doing to Yemen with their expensive Western killing toys and with help from Western intelligence and logistics.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Caliphate, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, Terrorism

Target Qatif: ISIS Comes to the Saudi Home to Roost……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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I posted yesterday on ISIS (DAESH), its genesis, its creators, and its enablers. I specifically opined that:
“I have often posted, as have others, that nobody is as responsible for the bloody mess in Syria as Mr. Erdogan of Turkey and his Arab Wahhabi allies (the Al Saud princes, Al Thani of Qatar, and other Persian Gulf Islamists). Together these anti-democratic forces, with some misguided Western cooperation, managed to turn what started as a legitimate demand for Syrian democracy into a nightmare. One more Arab uprising became a Wahhabi Salafi terrorist campaign out of control, fed by petro-money, petro-weapons, and petro-volunteers. The Saudis and Qataris count on being far away from any spillover in their on police states on the Gulf, with no common borders with the inferno that is Syria. Turkey does not: their miscalculation is next door………….”

I take some of that back. The Saudis are not that far away from the domain of ISIS after all. Today a second terrorist bombing against Shi’a Friday (Sabbath) prayers was committed in Qatif, Saudi Arabia. More than twenty one have died so far, tens of others wounded. ISIS claimed responsibility: it looks like ISIS is coming back to the Saudi home to roost.

The incessant Saudi propaganda message that the attack on Yemen is an attack on the Shi’a enemy is bearing fruit at home. Not only is this stalemated war popular among the Wahhabi faithful, it has inspired them. For now, but the Saudi body bags are mounting along the border, a warning against any illusion of what kind of Saudi defeat a ground war will entail.


ISIS is returning home, hitting the softest Saudi target, its Shi’a minority in their mosque. Just as terrorist Jihadis, all graduates of the Wahhabi school of thought, have been doing in Iraq for a decade. ISIS would not dare hit the Wahhabi mosques: that is their bread and butter. That is where much of their money and most of their volunteers come from. That is the original Wahhabi home of ISIS or DAESH, as it is of Al Qaeda and Al Nusra and all the other global and regional terrorist groups………..

More of the Jihadi chickens are coming back home to roost………..

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Marriage, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Postpartum and Marriage in Arabia: Young Prince Bombs Yemen, Takes New Wife, Goes to Paris……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Saudi Arabia’s new young defense minister Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saudi apparently can multi-task. He has drawn the ire of some among the Wahhabi opposition, as well as predictably some senior officers from the ruling family (commoners would not dare express irritation at a royal). The story as told by opposition activists, including Mujtahidd, is as follows:

The prince followed up his trip to Camp David with a quick marriage to a second wife (or maybe a third wife). His first wife, a princess, is going through the after birth period of postpartum when the prince took another wife, another princess/cousin last week, and flew her to a Paris honeymoon. Now what can be more romantic than taking a new wife while your earlier model is struggling with the tough problems of postpartum? Especially if you take the new model to Paris (Abu Bakr Al Samarrai of ISIS, eat your heart out).

Paris is where he and the new bride are: dunno why he did not go to Yemen. So, a new baby, an old wife, and a new wife. Now he is handling a bombing war (on Yemen), a current wife in postpartum complications, and a new wife who God knows how long will last before being traded for a newer model. Plus an elderly father-king surrounded by rival princes: brothers, cousins, minions and all kinds of snake-oil salesmen.

I guess these entitlement people have their own unique problems too……….

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Death Penalty, Saudi Arabia

One Sector Where Jobs are Growing Fast in the Arabian Peninsula……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Saudi Arabia is advertising for eight new executioners, in a recruitment drive which leading human rights charity Amnesty International has warned is symptomatic of an “unprecedented spike” of judicial killings in the country. An advert for the position, posted on the country’s civil service jobs website, states that no specific qualifications are required for the brutal role which involves “executing a judgement of death” and performing amputations on those convicted of less serious crimes. The application form describes the executioners as “religious functionaries” and says that recruits would be at the lower end of the civil service pay scale…………..”

Saudi Arabia has a high unemployment rate among its 15-16 million citizens, even as it imports about 9 million foreign laborers and other employees. Joblessness among the young citizens (those in their twenties to early thirties) is reportedly fixed for several years now at near 30%. Of course, joblessness among the princes is almost 100% but that is not a problem.

But new reforms instituted by the new king have created new job opportunities for ambitious young Saudis in a unique sector of the economy. Apparently there is one sector where jobs are begging to be filled. Jobs for executioners (swordsmen, head-choppers and crucifiers) and hand choppers are opening fast under the new King Salman. Apparently there are about 8 ranks or levels of such jobs.

P.S: not everybody can apply for these jobs. Shi’as, Safawis, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Vegans, Agnostics, Muslim Brothers, and Zoroastrians (called Majousi or Magi by Wahhabis) need not apply.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arabian Peninsula, Culture, Humor, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi

The Overlooked Faces of Real Saudi Reform………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Since the creation of the modern Saudi state some hundred years ago there have been three constants. These three constants have defined the country that the ruling family arrogantly renamed after themselves. They called it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The three constants have been: (1) Wahhabism; (2) Absolute family rule and the subsequent kleptocracy; (3) Goateed kings and princes, from Abdulaziz through kings Saud, Faisal, Khaled, Fahd, Abdullah, and Salman, including several crown princes like Sultan and Nayef. The first two have been widely exported with plenty of Saudi money. Wahhabism now covers a vast area from Indonesia to Morocco, including AQAp and ISIS. It has noticeable influence in major European cities. This last expansion into Europe has led to the phenomenon of Islamophobia.

The last constant, the goatee beard (saksooka), did not take much hold outside the Arabian Peninsula. There are a few exceptions, for example Saad Hariri in Lebanon but he is the Saudi man in that country and sporting a goatee is like raising the Saudi flag. There might be one or two others in Lebanon with goatee beard, but I have not seen them nor heard of them. Inside Arabia, the goatee has ruled. Any prince worth his salt who aspired to reach the top of the hierarchy had to sport a goatee, preferably dyed jet black (Kiwi brand). Any minion who aspired to rise in the bureaucracy had to do the same.

Now King Salman has started his rule with a new face, literally. He has appointed a crown prince with no goatee beard, a first. He has appointed his son as deputy crown prince, also without a goatee, but with an Emirati style trimmed beard. It is worth noting that the crown prince apparently has no male heirs, comforting thought for his deputy.

That is the new future of the Arabian Peninsula, so long as the Al Saud rule it. That is the new face of Saudi reform, literally, and almost certainly the extent of it. No more goatee………….

(P.S: Now if they can get rid of the moustache, then they might have a slew of kings and princes who are as hairless as Francois Hollande or David Cameron or Angela Merkel).

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Muslim Brotherhood, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE

In the Beginning: Shifting Dynastic Alliances in the Gulf GCC……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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In the Beginning………….

There were two major recent Middle East alliances: (1) the alliance of Qatar and Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood-MB- (that was after the MB regime in Egypt was overthrown by the Al Sisi military coup) and; (2) the alliance of military-ruled Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Now the old alliances have been shaken and jumbled so that there are, for now: (1) the alliance of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Turkey (hard to believe that five years ago the Saudis used to accuse Qatar of being allied with Iran and Iraq and Syria and Lebanon) and; (2) the alliance of the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE potentates shared an intense mistrust and hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood, while the Qatari potentates financed and supported the Brotherhood. Apparently the Qatari potentates have so much money that they are always looking for some foreign ally willing to accept some of it, including the FIFA sports officials. The Qataris still support the MB, but the Saudis have modified their view somewhat of their ancient ally and later enemy the Muslim Brotherhood. After all they are allied with the Brotherhood in both Yemen and Syria. The UAE still violently opposes the MB and has moved closer to Al Sisi of Egypt even as the Al Saud have moved closer to Qatar and Caliph Erdogan of Turkey.

Now apparently the Saudi opposition, the Wahhabi branch of it that is overseas, is confused or conflicted about the Saudi-Qatari ties. One school of thought claims that the new Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Nayef Al Saud strongly influences, nay dominates, the Qatari Emir Tamim Al Thani. Another school of Wahhabi opposition thought sees the influence reversed: it claims that it was Emir Tamim of Qatar who influenced the Saudis and talked them into easing up on the Muslim Brotherhood.
They both agree that the real power in the UAE, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed, lost out because he had betted on and was closely allied with Saudi Prince Meteb Bin Abdullah who has lost out after his father died.

P.S:So far only Oman and Kuwait have remained outside these flexible shifting sub-alliances among the potentates of the GCC. Probably wisely, for now.

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Cinema, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

A Fatwa in Arabia: Gone With The Wind Minus Rhett and Scarlett…………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Displaced Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi said he is sure that the Houthi rebels will be defeated in the near future. Yemen Reconciliation Conference to Provide Basis For Any Future Talks. The Houthi rebels will be defeated in the near future, displaced Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi said Sunday at a conference on Yemen reconciliation. The conference in the Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh involves over 400 representatives of the country’s political forces and the international organizations. The representatives of the Houthi rebel group, the main opposition force in Yemen, do not participate in the conference…………”

This futile Saudi-organized conference on Yemen is a monologue rather than a dialogue. The most important actors in Yemen are not attending. It is like Gone With The Wind without Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara. No Houthis or former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh representatives were invited or would attend anyway. Hadi and those with him could never fill the place of either Rhett or Scarlett, or even the fat slave Mammy of Tara.
That is where escaped deposed president General Hadi of Yemen gave his latest fatwa that “the Saudis will win their air war against the Houthis soon”. Hadi had also announced two weeks ago a grandiose plan for Yemen to join the Gulf GCC, which was ignored by everyone especially the GCC. He also issued a string of meaningless decrees appointing and disappointing commanders who had mostly fled Aden with him to Riyadh. Any commander worth his salt who remained in Yemen would ignore his orders after he abandoned them for the safety and luxury of Saudi hospitality.    

Then there is my own famous and potent fatwa on Yemen and Hadi’s prospects in Sanaa. Here it is.   
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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Media, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia

Laughingstock of MENA? Oligarchs Hijack the Anger of Arab Youth, LOL…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2        SaudiObama1

A lot of conferences and symposiums and fora are held in the Gulf region. All allegedly representing the whole Arab world, from the Gulf to the Atlas Mountains. Another one was held recently in Dubai which seemed to trend toward pinning the blame for Arab problems on anybody but those responsible: the Arab establishment.

Just why are the Arabs angry? And how angry are the “young Arabs” at being “a laughingstock” according to Roger Cohen and Amr Moussa? And do the masses of Arab youths from Iraq to Morocco really give a hoot about the preferences and prejudices of unelected Gulf oligarchs? 

And who best expresses the anger of Arab “youth” according to most Western media types and pundits?
Why, it is first of all Amr Moussa, former Egyptian foreign minister then secretary general of the Arab League under Hosni Mubarak. Who else can express revolutionary anger but an octogenarian man of the establishment? Then after that who else but the absolute Saudi princes, then the absolute oligarchs of the UAE and Bahrain and Qatar.

And why are the Arab youth allegedly supposedly perhaps so angry that Persian Iran has influence in the Persian Gulf, but they are not angry that Britain, France, Monaco, and Colombian mercenaries are building bases in the same Persian Gulf faster than petro-money can finance them? And why are these “youths of the whole Arab world” allegedly represented by a handful of foreign absolute kings, princes, potentates, and their paid media minions?

And why are Arab youths, according to Amr Moussa and others, not angry at their rulers instead of being angry at foreigners who take advantage of meddling opportunities created by the rulers? Shouldn’t they be angry, as they used to be in past decades, at their rulers for enabling foreigners (Iranians, Turks, Israelis, Westerners) to wield influence?

All this puzzling “stuff” I gleaned from the recent article by Roger Cohen in the New York Times.  Written in the warm afterglow of a well-fed six-star conference in the United Arab Emirates. While the Yemenis next door got bombed and starved by the same brotherly and sisterly Arab oligarchs.          

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Mocha Con Kafka: Southern Arabia as a Testing Ground for Royal Weapons……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2        SaudiObama1

Finally the Saudi princes had a chance to use their hundred billion dollars of weapons stockpiles. They chose Southern Arabia, or events chose Yemen for them.

Except that they used it in their usual shadow-dancing: they used the best Western weapons that money can buy, at a huge cost of prices and bribes, but they used them in yet another Arab country. A country that has not attacked them. This time the poorest Arab country outside Africa became the testing ground. Last time it was Bahrain, but that was a security operation. This one in Yemen became a genocidal massacre of people, destruction of cities and infrastructure and food supplies. A genocide against a whole country, even as the local Yemeni factions are killing each other, largely but predictably ignored by Western media. The remnants of Arab liberals, with keen trained eyes focused on Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati money, have largely ignored the attack on Yemen.

The Saudis harkened to the simpler days of Desert Storm, when the cause was clear: Saddam’s Baathist army had occupied a sovereign country and was trounced by an American-led  Western coalition, with  a few Arab brigades for window-dressing. Never original, they came up with Decisive Storm, which has proved anything but decisive. The ragtag Houthi tribals and their Yemeni army allies withstood the air assault and forced a ceasefire. The escaped former president of Yemen, General AbdRabuh Hadi (Bin Zombie) and his foreign minister and their corrupt Islah (Muslim Brotherhood) partners kept urging more war and a land invasion, into a war they had both escaped and would not fight. The Saudis may have even used the fateful motto “Mission Accomplished”, a la George W Bush in the early days of the Iraq War.

So, will the absolute repressive tribal non-elected Saudi and Qatari potentates force a democratic elected government on Yemen? Would that be through the reinstatement of the weakling General Hadi and his corrupt Islah (local Muslim Brotherhood) allies? Oddly, or maybe not, Islah is Arabic for Reform, but it was anything but reform). Both prospects are unlikely: there an Arab saying that “one can’t bestow what one doesn’t have : فاقد الشيئ لا يعطيه“. An excellent and appropriate saying in the rich Arab tradition. But the Middle East strives to be a little bit more Kafkaesque than the rest of the world.
    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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