“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
“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.
“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
Rasid website reports that the Saudi regime has accused an outspoken Shi’a cleric of terrorism for speaking against injustice and repression. Shaikh Hassan al-Saffar had openly questioned how a regime that ‘condemns killing protesters in other countries allows the killing of protesters at home’. Saudi regime spokesmen have again accused the protesters and civil rights advocates in Qatif (Eastern Province) of being pawns of foreign powers. (Charging protesters and opponents of the Wahhabi regime of being Iranian pawns is a standard refrain of some Gulf despots and of the pro-Saudi Wahhabi faux-liberal media and regime academics along the Gulf). The Saudi regime media have often spoken of a “fifth column”, referring to Shi’as who are demanding their rights as citizens on their own ancestral land of the Eastern Province. The Saudis, in fact, have their own strong “fifth column” all along the Persian-American Gulf: it consists of the Salafis who are loyal to the al-Saud clan and their Wahhabi shaikhs more than to any other entity. Most of the Saudi oil is extracted from the Shi’a area but they are the last to benefit from it.
I wonder if the Saudis can convince the Obama administration to add free speech to the list of acts of terrorism. That new definition of terrorism would only include free speech in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE, almost exclusively. Cheers
mhg
“His Grace Shaikh Salih al-Lhaidan, member of the Commission of Senior Ulema (clergy) and former chief of the High Judiciary Council today demanded that the writer Hamza Kashghari should be put to death as an apostate, even if he repents. He also demanded that Arab states of OPEC should stop all petroleum exports to Russia and China after their veto at the United Nations Security Council……”
“Saudi King Abdullah has ordered the writer Hamza Kashghri be arrested for insulting Islam in his writings and tweets….….”
This Kashghri, I haven’t read anything by or for him, has now got a double whammy. The shaikhs fatwad that he be killed, the king (no less) has now ordered his arrest. It is usually Prince Nayef’s empire that arrests people and “punishes” them, but this time his royal majesty decided to get the credit. Unlike the shaikh, the king did not tie all this to Russia and China and their UN vote on Syrian intervention. A royal decree, no less, for an arrest: only in Saudi Arabia, what we on the Gulf used to call watermelon country (with watermelon laws).
Now
I’ve got to read something about this guy, just to see wtf he said or wrote. They say that he soon retracted what he wrote and expressed his apology, but nothing doing. In Saudi Arabia, looking at the photo of a prince with your tongue out or your middle finger extended can get you an open-ended invitation to a cell in a cellar (not a chateau type). Cheers
mhg
BFF “The media’s reticence on the subject no doubt has several sources. One may be fear of provoking additional violence. Another is most likely the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation—a kind of United Nations of Islam centered in Saudi Arabia—and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Over the past decade, these and similar groups have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression ……… The Christophobia that has plagued Sudan for years takes a very different form. The authoritarian government of the Sunni Muslim north……..”
There are three people the Western media often resort to when they want “objective” opinion on Islamic-Western relations. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is one. Not that I disagree with ‘everything’ she espouses: I probably agree with her on some points. Ali hasn’t been on television as much, mostly writings and ‘utterances’. Ali makes sure everyone knows she has nothing but contempt for Islam: all its aspects, not just how it treats women. She does not distinguish between the faith and the “faithful”: an easy shot, some would say a cheap shot. We all know the “faithful” do not all follow the faith. That applies equally to Muslims and Christians. Fair enough, that is her opinion. There is room enough for both Islamophobia (of which she has a severe case) and Christophobia.
Now Christians and the world-wide assault on Christianity is apparently the cause du jour, even in the ongoing Campaign 2012. She certainly is not missing that bandwagon. In these days of fundamentalist ascendancy in the Middle East (and America), the fate of Christians is a legitimate concern. Yet is it a tit-for-tat Fox News (dare I say Geert Wilders) type of approach she takes? The point is: the West is free and democratic, and the Muslim world is mostly dictatorial, that is a fact. It is silly to insinuate that the West should persecute Muslims simply because, for example, Saudi Arabia bans any kind of worship other than Islamic even in private. That is why the West is what it is and Saudi Arabia is not. Could she be angling for a speaker’s slate at the Tea Party Republican National Convention next summer?
I am eager to read her future writings on the Endlösung and how Christians killed 6 million Jewish civilians in gas chambers in a Europe that was nearly free of Muslims. And about the 40 million (or is it 50 million) people of all faiths that were killed in the last European war. No need to mention the mass rapes and the genocide and mass graves of Bosnia. Everybody has a house of glass, but some houses are more so. There is also a Syrian dude whom the American right wing has been celebrating for years; he is their favorite “witness” in Muslim and Islamic hearings. I suspect if anyone, he will be the one to speak at Tampa (you see, Muslim men rule, even in the Tea Party). Cheers
mhg
BFF
“Authorities in Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic bordering Iran, have arrested two men suspected of plotting to attack prominent foreigners including Israel’s ambassador and a local rabbi, officials and media reported on Wednesday. The National Security Ministry said the men were connected to an Iranian citizen who had links with Iran’s intelligence. Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim country, is home to more than 9,000 Jews and has friendly ties with Israel and the United States. A major energy producer, it exports oil to Israel and imports weapons and military hardware. “Citizens of Azerbaijan – Rasim Aliyev and Ali Huseynov – were preparing an attack on public figures, who are foreign citizens,” the National Security Ministry said in a statement. The U.S. embassy issued a warning to its citizens saying “the possibility remains for actions against U.S. or other high-profile foreign interests in Azerbaijan”. The announcement came after several state websites in Azerbaijan were rendered inaccessible for hours this month by hackers who left threats and anti-Israel messages. That incident coincided with similarcyber-attacks in Israel……..” WTF? In Azerbaijan? Another Iranian plot against some other embassy? I wonder how the dictatorship in Azerbaijan feels about all this. If this continues the mullahs would have to add the picture of a generic embassy in the middle of the Iranian flag. Truly when it rains it pours. They must have a whole ministry in Tehran in charge of plots against foreign targets that are never realized: it must be called the “Ministry of Thwarted Overseas Terror Plots”. The Iranians, though, probably think this ministry might only exist in the imagination of Western and Saudi media, possibly planted there by bored employees Western (and Saudi) security services. (I haven’t seen any statement of outrage from Senator Secretary Clinton yet. Maybe I missed it. Maybe even she is getting suspicious of all these alleged plots.) Cheers
mhg
One year ago, just before Mubarak was forced out in Egypt, the Mufti of Saudi Arabia got his orders and issued a fatwa against protests. Here is how that post starts:
The Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Shaikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh severely criticized those who protest and demonstrate in Arab cities. He said the demonstrations are part of a plot to weaken Arab and Muslim countries and, get this, to transform them from big strong nations to weak backward nations. Shaikh Al said these protesters are spreading lies….. He said that security and stability are most important, using the example of Saudi Arabia, which he said follows the word of Allah and has become an example cited all over the world. (Somehow I had missed the part about it being cited as an example to be followed, unless Angela Merkel is now proposing to behead sorcerers and magicians in Germany, for example)
The Mufti, besides being intellectually the equivalent of a Neanderthal, is also a keen propagandist for Wahhabism and for the absolute royals. But that is okay, they appointed him. Besides, he had no choice: the Saudi king himself publicly called the Egyptian youth who started the revolution “foreign infiltrators”. For the king, these youth are foreigners since they are not Saudis.
FYI: Shaikh Al is a direct descendant of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Abdulwahab, an early ally of the al-Saud after whom the strict Wahhabi doctrine was named. They got to name a whole country after their family, and the shaikh got to name a whole sect after his family. Shaikh Mohammad Bin Abdulwahab should not be confused with the late great Mohammed Abdelwahab, the Egyptian composer and singer who was never a Wahhabi nor a fundamentalist. Cheers
mhg
BFF “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
BFF “Algeria said Thursday it will not boost crude oil exports in the event Iran suddenly cuts supplies to Europe after the EU imposed new sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear drive. “We have a programme in place that won’t be modified,” Energy Minister Youcef Yousfi told Algerian news service APS. EU foreign ministers agreed Monday on an immediate ban on oil imports and a phase-out of existing contracts up to July 1, as the West ramped up the pressure over Tehran’s nuclear activities and urged it to return to talks. However, Iran’s parliament is expected to consider next week a bill to ban oil exports to Europe much sooner, a move that could potentially raise prices………”
An article in the Saudi daily al-Hayat (owned by prince Khaled Bin Sultan) called Algeria a shumooliyya “totalitarian” state yesterday. That was the first time they call any Arab regime other than Libya and Syria by that epithet. They don’t do that unless they have a royal or princely green light, as part of state policy. I am not sure if this is related to the refusal of Algeria to join the Western blockade against Iran (unlike the Saudis). Yet it probably is: for a Saudi newspaper owned by a prince (they are all owned by princes or their retainers) to call anyone (bar none, well, maybe except North Korea) a “totalitarian” and undemocratic regime is a stretch. After all, this is the Absolute Tribal Polygamous Democratic People’s Kingdom of (Saudi) Arabia. Cheers
mhg
BFF 
Rattlesnake Ridge 