Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

Corruption, Interpol, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia

Of Interpol, Shady Princes, and a Humorless Jordanian Fugitive……..

      

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“An Interpol red notice, seeking the arrest in London of a Jordanian businessman at the centre of a high profile legal dispute involving two senior Saudi princes, has finally been withdrawn after more than two years. Faisal Almhairat claims that the notice authorising his extradition was issued in pursuit of a business vendetta. The international police agency, based in Lyons, France, has admitted belatedly that it was not “in compliance with Interpol’s rules”. Almhairat, 45, has been living a fugitive’s life in London, moving from hotel to hotel, because he says he fears that if extradited back to Saudi Arabia he would not receive a fair trial…………..”


In recent years Interpol has occasionally acted as a private security agency or a private outsourcing concern for some governments, but not all governments. The Saudi government is one of those lucky ones: can you imagine Interpol being so accommodating to Venezuela or Vietnam for example? 

If this Jordanian man was a Saudi national, it is almost certain that Interpol would have kept trying and would have succeeded in getting him sent packing to the tender mercies of the princes. As it is, they kept trying for two years to send him back. In fact it is also likely that even with him being a humorless Jordanian, he would have been sent back quickly if he were not enjoying the protection of the British legal system. Now I don’t know if this man is innocent of the accusations or just another crook: he can be either. As far as I know being humorless is not a punishable crime, especially not in Riyadh and certainly not in Jordan. (Why doesn’t he go home to Jordan? Is he worried that King Abdul will pack him back to the princes?).

Remember the young Saudi journalist who two years ago tweeted something the princes and their Wahhabi clerics had thought was blasphemy? Kashghari escaped to Malaysia, where Interpol quickly cooperated with the pro-Saudi authorities of that country in having him sent back to a possible death sentence. He was in fact imprisoned for over two years without a trial. (And no, they have never heard of Miranda or his rights in the Kingdom without Magic where rights for the average Mutlaq are sparse and far between).

Cheers
mhg

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Culture, Fatwas, Food, Saudi Arabia

Hooters of Arabia: Cleric Bans Buffet, Can Happy Hours be Far Behind?……….

      

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“A fatwa (religious edict) against “all you can eat” buffets by a Saudi cleric has stirred debate among users of social networking site Twitter. The cleric, Saleh al-Fawzan, recently issued a fatwa through a kingdom-based Quranic TV station prohibiting open buffets, saying that the value and quantity of what is sold should be pre-determined before it is purchased. “Whoever enters the buffet and eats for 10 or 50 riyals without deciding the quantity they will eat is violating Sharia (Islamic) law,” said Fawzan on al-Atheer channel. Using the Twitter hashtag “prohibiting-open-buffet” …………”

Shaikh Saleh al-Fawzan is usually an outspoken cleric. It was a matter of time before he came up with a new doozy. 

No more buffet. The Wahhabi cleric bases his ban fatwa on a technical point. It is purely scientific but in a Wahhabi way, perhaps based on old usury laws. I imagine the Mufti, the chief mufti Shaikh Al Shaikh, is royally pissed, in a Wahhabi sort of way. Doing a V-8: slapping his forehead with the heel of his hand: “Now why didn’t I think of that?” If this stands: no more all you can eat in Riyadh and Burayda and even in Mecca where the more privileged five-star and seven-star pilgrims like to tuck it in between bouts of spiritual piety. No more shoveling it in, even if you are at a 7-star hotel and hence closer to God than others. Which can be a good healthy thing. Of course some rude glutton might complain that ‘it is none of his fucking business‘, but not me. Freedom of Fatwa is guaranteed in the kingdom, even if nothing else is.


On the other hand, and more ominously, expect more. Expect the unexpected. Next to be fatwa-d into oblivion are the famous happy hours of Riyadh. Without the money-making Happy Hours, the famous watering holes from Najd to Hijaz to the Empty Quarter will go out of business. It is a good thing they don’t have any Hooters other than owls and some local singers in the kingdom……….

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism

Iraq and Saudi and Qatar: One Man’s Terrorist as another Man’s Proxy………

      

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“Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of seeking to destabilise his country by supporting insurgent groups and providing them with financial support. In an interview with French television channel France24, Mr Maliki said the two countries had effectively declared war on Iraq. “They are attacking Iraq through Syria, and in a direct way,” he said. Mr Maliki also accused Saudi Arabia of supporting global “terrorism”……………”

Such open sharp attack on the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar is uncharacteristic of Nouri Al Maliki. For years he has been silent as the two Wahhabi ruling dynasties heaped charges against him, mainly calling him a stooge of the Iranian mullahs. (Oddly, it was not the Iranians who initially paved the way to power for Al Maliki). His outburst is partly exasperation at the recent sharp escalation in acts of terrorism against civilians inside Iraq. Committed by uninvited Arab visitors to Iraq. Some Gulf states have been involved in Iraq for years, some of the more sectarian businessmen and clerics and zealots among Iraq’s neighbors started causing mischief right after the 2003 fall of the Baathist regime. Many of the Arab Jihadist terrorists that plague Iraq came from among the Salafis of the Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, being the most notorious and most humorless of them all, naturally came from Jordan). Saudi money and tribal contacts in Western Iraq have no doubt influenced matters inside Iraq. Qatari potentates have the money to spend, or burn if need be, inside Iraq. They can afford, if they choose, to burn money in order to burn Iraq.


Of course it is not all that simple. Al Maliki may also be thinking of the coming elections later this spring. It is a good time to appeal to his political base and try to get them agitated for the elections. Al Maliki probably wants another term as prime minister. (All Arab leaders always want to rule forever, that is the most common characteristic of the region: must be something in the water). 
It would be best for Iraq if someone else is picked by the next parliament. Keeping the same man as head of government is not a good way to cleanse the Baathist legacy of dictatorship. even if the man comes to power through an electoral system.
Of curse I know of one man who would be worse for Iraq than Mr. Al Maliki. That would be Ayad Allawi, whose chance of getting the job is next to zero percent. Fortunately my old fatwa of the last Iraqi elections in 2009 still holds. I believe I said that Allawi has as much chance of becoming prime minister of Iraq as I have of becoming prime minister of Israel (I now amend that by adding Saudi Arabia since only the king can be prime minister, no matter how old he is). Mr. Allawi also has as much chance of becoming the PM of Iraq as h has of becoming the PM of Saudi Arabia (where he is the only Shi’a that is considered kosher and halal in Riyadh).

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

GCC Egyptian Hook-Up Game: Saudis Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places……

      

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“Saudi Arabia is also now bruiting the induction of Egypt into the Gulf Cooperation Council, presumably with the proviso that Egypt will be allowed to extract enormous strategic rent from the GCC. In return, Egypt will protect the very wealthy but very weak GCC from Iran and Shiite Iraq, and from the Brotherhood. Anonymous Egyptian sources I saw quoted in the Egyptian press when I was there last week were speculating that if al-Sisi becomes president, he can bring in $240 billion in investments and aid from the Gulf………………..”

“PAMP (Polygamous
Arab Male Potentates), seeking poor family-ruled Arab country that does
not believe in democracy, and is willing to send troops and security
agents when needed. Money is no object, up to a point. Preferably no
Shi’as or Hasidim or Haredim among the population.” Possible GCC Personal Want-Ad


That PAMP mock want-ad reflects the state of Gulf GCC regimes since 2011. It is actually the state of the Saudi royal family, since it is the princes who have been flailing to grasp some accommodating Arab regime that can be invited to keep order when needed in exchange for money. From Jordan to Morocco, and now to Egypt.
 

Perhaps they are better off staying with the U.S. Navy for external protection from any real or (more likely) imaginary foe. Whoever heard of the Egyptian navy? Or the Jordanian navy? Or the Moroccan navy? But protection from whom? What the princes really want is a land force for protection from their own people, protection from change: that is why they have hired mercenaries from Asia and Arab countries (Bahrain) and even Latin America and Australia (UAE).

Modern Egyptian military history, its effectiveness, is very iffy (I am being polite here). In spite of the heroics of Al Sisi. After all, the four wars with Israel were not exactly ringing victories, starting with the first defeat at the hands of the ragtag Haganah bands in 1948, what we call the Palestine War. Actually in that war five Arab armies were defeated by graduates of the European concentration camps and survivors of the butchery of the civilized world. It was all downhill from then.
They may have won their last campaign at home: the war Mr. Mubarak declared on Egyptian swine in 2009, the so-called War on Pigs. Egypt’s native swine, the country’s largest minority for thousands of years seem to have all but disappeared, reportedly eliminated. Long before anyone ever heard of Mohammed Morsi. Although some of them are probably hidden inside the government and the military, sanctioned within the bureaucracy.
 

The Saudi princes are notoriously unstable (or maybe just stupid). They surprised everyone, perhaps even each other, by unilaterally inviting Jordan and Morocco to join the GCC in 2011. Then they spent the next couple of years trying to walk back from that stupid proposal.
Now they are toying with economically strapped Egypt, a country that keeps getting more crowded along the banks of the Nile. Egypt needs to stop and then reverse its population explosion, otherwise no GCC money can help. Besides, dreams of tens of billions are just that: dreams. They will get a few billion, but at a price of letting the Gulf princes and potentates pick their leaders (as they did in 2013 and 2014), and at the price of deciding their foreign policy. At the price of turning the country even more into a ‘watering’ hole for hungry and thirsty and, er, ‘socially’ frustrated and repressed Wahhabi men.
Here are some links to previous postings on this topic:

GCC Summit in December: Auld Lang Syne and L’Internationale

Bahrain Poised to Import Even More Jordanian Mercenaries?

Morocco and Jordan and GCC Constitutional Monarchy

Moroccans are from Mars, the GCC from Venus? Democracy and Humor

Saudi Leadership of GCC: Three Major Failures, Three Strikes but not Out, not yet

Gulf GCC: on Jordanian Accession, Roman Dinarius, Israeli Shekel, and Kosher Currency

Saudis in Denial: Expanded GCC? What Expanded GCC?

Expanded GCC? Picking Security over Economics, More on Black Magic

Gulf GCC: Moroccan Couscous Controversy, Jordanian Humor Controversy

Riyadh Marriage Proposal: GCC, Morocco, Jordan……

Freedoms the GCC will Bring to Morocco and Jordan……

Fatwas on GCC Expansion: Jordan, Morocco, and the Muftis

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain, GCC, Kuwait, Oman, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Wahhabi

GCC Rifts amid Arab Unrest: Wild Attempts at Gulf Hegemony, Swallowing a Bone……

      

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“Rumours suggest the Saudis have quietly threatened to seal their border with Qatar, the emirate’s sole land link to the outside world, as well as to close Saudi airspace to Qatar-bound flights………… .Qatar, meanwhile, has served as a haven for fugitives from Egypt, including hardened jihadist extremists as well as besuited Brotherhood politicians. Al Jazeera’s Arabic channels, demonised in Egypt to the point that staff in its independently run English-language division are being tried as terrorists, have become lonely pulpits for the Brotherhood. Al Jazeera’s star preacher, Yousef al-Qaradawi, rails against Arab regimes that he says were complicit in the “crimes” of Egypt’s coup leaders. Mr Qaradawi lives happily in Qatar. An explanatory joint statement from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE accused Qatar of breaching a pledge, made by Sheikh Tamim in November, to tone down such invective and “abide by the principle of non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs”. Less officially they are said to be demanding the expulsion or extradition of Islamist exiles. On March 3rd a court in the UAE sentenced a Qatari doctor to seven years in prison for alleged conspiracy………………”

Tensions have always existed between the Gulf GCC countries, as they are expected when several states interact. It is silly to pretend otherwise. But the GCC potentates have always tried to pretend that there are no such tensions. The people, however, are smarter, people know better of course: at home we have always said that there are no secrets in Kuwait. That may also apply to the other Gulf states. Here is a summary of recent tensions that have surfaced, or resurfaced:


  • Qatar: Qataris are supposed to be the moderate ‘Wahhabis’, mostly. They have had long disputes with both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The past disputes with Bahrain have been over borders and territory. The disputes with the Al Saud princes have been more about politics. Don’t get me wrong: neither country is democratic. In fact none of the three are. The disputes have also been over relations with third parties (Iran, Egypt, Syria, Hezbollah, Gaza, Muslim Brotherhood) as well as about Qatari rebuffs of Saudi attempts at hegemony over the Gulf GCC states. The Qataris share a huge offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf with Iran, so their relations with the mullahs are mostly cordial. They have also adopted the role of financial and political supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, and this last one is what irks the Al Saud and Al Nahayan brothers now. The Qataris have given asylum to some Egyptian MB clerics and members, like Al Qaradawi, just as the Al Saud did in the 1950s and 1960s. No need to rehash the Saudi-instigated coup attempt in Qatar in the 1990s after which a group of senior Saudi intelligence officers were imprisoned in Qatar for many years. You can find something in one of my links below (or in my other GCC posts).
  • Bahrain has no dog in that specific fight but the regime obediently and subserviently follows the Al Saudi policies. The Saudi King can wake up tomorrow and issue a fatwa that it is Wednesday, and soon after a Bahrain decree will declare that, yes, tomorrow is Wednesday. Life is simple when you don’t have to decide for yourself, no?
  • Bahrain: they had some outstanding
    issues and claims with Iran under the Shahs, but that was finally
    settled with independence as an Arab state and the first election that
    followed. The country, however, has remained potentially politically
    volatile, with occasional domestic unrest related to strained ties
    between the rulers and those they ruled. At the peak of the Arab
    Uprisings which had reached Bahrain in 2011, the island (s) was invaded
    by forces from Saudi Arabia and some from the UAE. Presumably through an agreement with the ruling
    family, presumably. Yet dangling the perennial idea of an “Iranian threat” across the impenetrable armada of the U.S. Navy has served the rulers of Bahrain well with willing but naive American politicians. It has also changed the subject from democracy an equality to sectarianism. This has served the ruling family (and their elite tribal allies) with their Sunni population and around the Gulf.

  • UAE: They have had their own Saudi problems since before the seven emirates were joined. There are grievances over border territories usurped by Saudi Arabia. These problems occasionally emerge and create temporary tensions, as when the Saudis occasionally close border crossings and create a partial economic/trade blockade. The Emirates have had local Muslim Brotherhood -MB- activity for some time, but apparently the shaikhs and potentates were not aware of their extent until the recent two years. Especially when a bunch of academics from local universities came out in the open calling for political ‘reform’. They were summarily thrown in prison, their citizenship revoked (apparently it is a privilege bestowed not a birthright). Now, for more than a year UAE media have been focused on attacking the MB.
  • The UAE rulers are also reported to have heavily financed Egyptian groups opposed to the elected Mohammed Morsi government. I would not be surprised if Field Marshal Al Sisi appointed one of the Al Nahayan brothers (owners of the UAE) as one of his vice presidents and an Al Saud prince as his other vice president. Adly Mansour Al Zombie can be his real vice president. I am also only about three-quarters kidding.

  • Oman: I have often written here that Oman looks more across the seas: beyond the Gulf and across the Indian Ocean. They pay lip service to GCC integration and even less so to Arab affairs. Historically they have had footholds in East Africa (they ruled Zanzibar) and even toe-holds in India. They also have no use for the Wahhabi clerics who consider the faith of many Omanis some kind of heresy. In the worst of times Oman has managed to keep on good terms with the mullahs (oddly, they were also on very good terms with the Shah when he ruled Iran).

  • Kuwait: Has refused to officially and directly join the Saudi-UAE-Bahrain anti-Qatar circus. It is politically the most un-Saudi of the GCC (if you disregard some tribal links). It is politically the most complex of the GCC countries. There are certain checks and balances, although occasionally overlooked. There is a relatively old constitution of more than half a century that guarantees certain political and religious rights. There is also an active political life both in an elected legislature and also in private gatherings and in the outspoken media. It is the hardest Gulf place to control politically.
  • Kuwait was also the target of repeated Wahhabi military aggression and attempts at annexation. The last time was in 1920 when the Ikhwan, the Al Saud zealous militias, again sought to annex it to their new Kingdom without Magic. That invasion failed and I am quite thankful for that. As schoolchildren they used to take us on field trips to the Red Fort (in the Jahra oasis) where the last battle was fought. The old defensive wall around the old city was later torn down, a dumb (or maybe deliberate) mistake. Iraq also famously invaded in 1990 and Baathist forces were expelled by American forces in 1991. Iranian espionage networks have been arrested in the past. Memories are long along the Gulf.

  • Saudi Arabia: Need I say anymore? It is the source of most tensions along the Arab side of the Gulf. I am leaving Iraq and Iran out of this for now because they are not GCC, but all three together are quite a load. None of the three is a regional sweetheart by any standard. The Al Saud family seems to think the solution to their fears of the empowerment of their own people is to control more of their neighbors. In some cases it is like trying to swallow a bone: one can choke on it.


I attach here a few of my more recent posts on the Gulf GCC issues in case you have more time to waste:

Brotherhood of the GCC, Wahhabis of the GCC, Feuding Misfits of the GCC

GCC Summit in December: Auld Lang Syne and L’Internationale

Beggar Thy OPEC Neighbor: Oil and the Economics of Nuclear Programs

Gulf GCC Joint Police Force: DOA or WTF or BOTH?

Owning the GCC: What is in a Name? Burj WTF and Al Einstein

GCC Bestseller Book: Gulf Dynasties for Dummies, a Theory of Sustainable Looting

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Saudi Arabia

King Congratulates Egyptian President Zombie on Referendum……..

      

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Alarabiya reports that Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has congratulated the military-appointed interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour Al Zombie on the success of the ‘results’ of the referendum on the new constitution.
The Servant of the Two Holy Shrines assured President Al Zombie that the referendum reflected the unity of the Egyptian people as reflected by the results which reflected the free will of the people. Alarabiya reports all that wisdom was in a telegram sent by the king to the Egyptian president. The king, however, did not promise to hold similar free referendums in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Not yet.
Can you believe all this gavno about free will and popular unity (or was it free unity and popular will)? And don’t these guys believe in text-ing these days? I mean it can’t be any more expensive than a telegram.

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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Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Science

Archaeological Arabia, Jurassic Modern Arabia………

      

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“A team of scientists from the Saudi Geological Survey with the active support of Uppsala University, Museum Victoria and Monash University have uncovered the first record of dinosaurs from Saudi Arabia. What is now dry desert was once a beach littered with the bones and teeth of ancient marine reptiles and dinosaurs. The researchers found teeth and bones dating from around 72 million years ago in the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia along the coast of the Red Sea, according to the scientific journal PLOS ONE which published the finds jointly authored by participating researchers from Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Australia. Two types of dinosaur were described from the assemblage, a bipedal meat-eating abelisaurid distantly related to Tyrannosaurus but only about six meters long, and a plant-eating titanosaur……………..”
Speaking of dinosaurs? I would have thought any talk of ‘dinosaurs’ would be banned in the Jurassic Kingdom. In case the shoe fits, which it does.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Bandar Goes to Washington, May Seek Syrian Presidency…….

      

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AlQuds AlArabi of London (reportedly still Qatari-financed), reports that chief of Saudi Intelligence Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Al-Saud is heading to the United States for medical treatment. It doesn’t say what ails him, but if afterwards he goes to Morocco for recuperation, that would be an ominous sign. Other princes reportedly have ended their Moroccan recuperation ‘feet first’, as the saying goes.
The daily also reports that the prince, who is the effective leader of the Syrian opposition and Lebanon’s March 14 bloc, will use the trip to smooth over Saudi-American relations. Among topics to be discussed: the Arab Peace Initiative for Israel-Palestine (actually it was a Thomas Friedman Initiative which the Saudis hijacked), Syria (Saudis want to show that they can also selectively side against some of the Jihadis fighting against Al-Assad, even as the opposition continues its happy disintegration). The report claims that relations between Washington and Riyadh warmed up after American officials, finally, announced that Iran will not be attending the Geneva 2 conference on Syria. Having apparently blocked Iran from attending Geneva (on Syria but not on the nuclear issue), the Saudi goal now is to prevent Bashar Al-Assad from running for president next year, presumably for fear that he might defeat Prince Bandar in the election…………

Cheers
mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, U.S. Congress

Tropical Paradise Lost? Rendition from Guantanamo, a Brotherhood of Cutthroats……….

      

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                            Video:
A Kenny G Holiday

“The Senate and House Armed Services committees have reached a deal that would, for the first time, loosen restrictions that impede the Pentagon’s ability to transfer Guantanamo detainees to foreign countries, making it slightly easier for the Obama administration to pursue the president’s longstanding goal of closing the detention facilities. The compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 would expand the executive branch’s ability to transfer Guantanamo prisoners to other countries, while maintaining the ban on bringing them to the United States. The proposed NDAA would allow detainees to be sent to Yemen, but would require the administration to report on the Yemen government’s ability to detain, rehabilitate or prosecute them…………………”

The Saudis try to rehabilitate the al-Qaeda veterans by transforming them from violent Wahhabis into peaceful Wahhabis, and sometimes by getting each one a wife or two (preferably). It all depends on the clout of their tribes: those of the larger tribes are usually given preferential treatment and the tribes are enlisted to help “turn” them. Some of them regress and are sent to Yemen or Iraq and Syria to do their God’s work of blowing up civilians (that is the Wahhabi God’s work).
As for those sent from Gitmo to Yemen: they’ll be held in the most secure prison in that splintered country for a few weeks, after which they’ll be busted out by their Al-Qaeda pals or their tribal folks. Then they’ll rejoin the Brotherhood of Cutthroats and they’ll make new targets for American drones.

FYI: There are no Shi’a members of Al-Qaeda, just like there were no Jews in the Nazi Party and for similar reasons. Hence there are no Shi’as in Guantanamo. If there were any, their rehabilitation method would be swift: they would be quickly beheaded in Saudi Arabia upon rendition.
Cheers
mhg

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