Category Archives: US Foreign Policy

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Hezbollah, US Foreign Policy

Jeffrey Feltman of Manama and the West Bank and Beirut, Auld Lang Syne………

     
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“A senior U.S. diplomat has traveled to Bahrain to meet with government officials and representatives from the civil society there, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jeff Feltman, who is in charge of Near Eastern affairs, visited Bahrain on Sunday and Monday, reaffirming the “long-standing commitment” of the United States to a “strong partnership” with Bahrain, Toner told reporters. “Reiterating U.S. support for Bahraini national reconciliation and dialogue, he concurred with the Bahraini leadership’s own embrace of the principles of reform and the respect for rule of law and coexistence,” he said. He said Feltman also discussed with Bahraini officials on regional developments, including U.S. concerns about “Iran’s exploitation” of the situation in the region. Toner said Feltman expressed U.S. appreciation for Bahrain’s cooperation on the issue of Libya…..…” Xinhua News

This must have been Feltman’s fourth or fifth visit to Bahrain. All were failures, or maybe not. All his previous visits failed to muzzle the al-Khalifa dogs, or maybe they were not intended to muzzle them. Maybe Jeffrey believed the Saudi-Khalifa narrative that his old Hezbollah pals are involved. That would be enough to bring back memories of Beirut, Hariri, Saniora, Lord Gaga, and the al-Saud emissaries. Lazy Sunday afternoons with the boys, guzzling beer and watching the cluster bombs of 2006 over the south. Enough to make Feltman burst into tears of longing, possibly enough to burst into singing Auld Lang Syne, with the shaikh trying to keep up.
He expressed appreciation for the rulers of Bahrain for cooperation on the issue of Libya, and the Bahraini butchers no doubt expressed appreciation for the Obama administration support on the issue of defending the apartheid system in Bahrain. In this regard, Mr. Feltman may have said that he had seen all the video clips and news clips and photos of the Bahraini victims of torture and sectarian killings and the village raids and the West Bank style checkpoints, and has concluded that the mullahs in Iran bear great responsibility for all of the above. The shaikh (now king) of Bahrain may offer Feltman the Bahraini citizenship as a reward for his frequent visits, as well as a government house in a secure area inhabited by imported security officers from Pakistan and Jordan and Syria.
PS: I need to make a correction about the West Bank. Israeli occupation soldiers at checkpoints don’t normally administer beatings and kickings, and people don’t normally just disappear at their checkpoints. They also don’t have Saudi soldiers, as far as I know, not yet.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

A Saudi Cause Célèbre: a Policy of Apartheid, a Media Empire……..

        
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  Can the Saudi army & Abu Dhabi mercenaries crush her spirit?

The chief editor of
 Asharq Alawsat, the Saudi daily owned by prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz and run by his son, is here telling the United States administration to stop issuing statements about Bahrain and the Saudi invasion of the island. When this guy writes like this, it can only mean that he got his orders from his lords and masters to say so.

Its title in Arabic is a tough sounding “America Must Control These Statements!”. He is referring to US concern about Bahrain and the killings of civilians by regime security mercenaries. The headline is translated by the newspaper to a milder “America’s inconsistent statements”. He is also saying that allowing free elections in Bahrain would “hand the island to Iran”, a typical Wahhabi refrain against free elections anywhere, even in the oppressed Arabian Peninsula which is about 90% of the “right sect”. He, a foreigner to Bahrain, is also casting suspicions of disloyalty on a majority of the people of Bahrain. Even though it was the ruling oligarchy that betrayed the country by inviting foreign forces to invade.

They have mobilized their vast media (all owned or controlled by Saudi princes), their hired Salafi shaikhs, and their paid ghost newspapers in some states of the Persian-American Gulf (the worst two dailies in my hometown, the worst two in the Middle East, with suspicious financing, fall in that category). They focus now on Bahrain more than anything else, having made the al-Khalifa Apartheid policy against the people of Bahrain their cause célèbre.

They will lose in the end because they are on the wrong side of the move of history. They have no cause beyond keeping in power a grasping and corrupt regime that is a smaller version of their own. Besides, the fear that kept these twits in control is gone. I am not talking about just Bahrain. There is no fear…….
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, US Foreign Policy

What Bob Gates Did not Know, Crushing the Spirit of Bahrain……….

        
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  Can the Saudi army & Abu Dhabi mercenaries crush her spirit?
“Top U.S. defense and military officials were given no indication during recent visits to the Middle East that Saudi forces would deploy to Bahrain, the Pentagon said on Monday. “We have communicated to all parties our concerns regarding actions that could be provocative or inflame sectarian tensions,” Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. The Pentagon said neither Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was in the region last week, nor Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had no prior knowledge of the deployment by close ally Saudi Arabia…….”

Okay, the US has its biggest naval base in the region in Bahrain, and the US secretary of defense visits Manama, and one day later the Saudis invade. Do you believe the US administration did not know? If you do, I still have that old lame camel that is in perfect condition for sale.
Cheers
mhg

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Lebanon, US Foreign Policy

Lebanon: STL to Charge Muqtada al-Sadr?……….

     

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“The prosecutor in the assassination case of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri said he filed an expanded indictment on Friday. The indictment remains secret and the names of the suspects under investigation have not been released. The prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, said the amendment “expands the scope” of the initial indictment he filed in January. A spokesman for the special tribunal in Leidschendam, the Netherlands, said it could take months for judges to review thousands of supporting documents…….”

I am beginning to feel that the indictment changes, expands, and shrinks with the political variables in our region. Nay, it is not just a ‘feeling’, it is a fact. Maybe they, the West, have decided to add Ahmadinejad to the list (the fact that he was elected after the Hariri assassination is probably immaterial to this tribunal). They may decide to put back Bashar Assad, or they may decide to add Hosni Mubarak, now that he is out of office. I have even toyed, just now, with the idea that they may add one or two Mossad operatives: but I think that was Hasan Nasrallah’s idea. Besides, Mossad usually needs about 38 people to assassinate one man nowadays. I just hope they don’t decide to add to the indictment list the Dubai Chief of Police or Qaddafi. I know: how about Muqtada al-Sadr? He would be a convenient suspect.
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, US Foreign Policy

Arab Uprisings: How the West was Won and Lost………

     

   
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Arab and Western media had thought 2011 looked like a boring year, just a break between American elections while the world waits for the next episode in the Israeli-Iranian or Israeli-Palestinian novellas.
Until a desperate Tunisian youth (Bouazizi) burned himself alive in December, and most Egyptians suddenly remembered a skinny young blogger (Khalid Said) who was beaten to death last summer by Mubarak’s police thugs. The revolution started.


  • Now Arab and Western media are excited now, as never before since the 1979, or maybe since 1917, or maybe 1789.
  • Democratic Israel is upset, subtly blaming Obama and asking for more money and weapons to confront the threat of this new democratic Arab wave.


  • American officials are uncertain whether to be upset or not. They have shown bi-polar symptoms, a k a some hypocritical tendencies. They worried about the revolt against Mubarak and Ben Ali, welcomed the revolt against Qaddafi and heartily cheered the protests in Tehran. They ignored the lingering revolt against the dictator of Sana’a (Yemen). They seriously frowned upon the revolt by the people of Bahrain (I suspect they more than frowned upon it privately: they tried to play a game of chess whereby someone else suggests their moves). I knew that the Bahraini revolt would get no traction in the officialdom of the United States as soon as Mr. Feltman flew into Manama last week and spent several days. No statement yet from Senators McCain and Lieberman yet that, yes, “Today we are all Bahrainis”, and not necessarily “Today we are all al-Khalifas”. That is natural: a Western, or any foreign, power looks after its own national interests before it looks after the interests of the people, any people.

  • Tony Blair puts his middle finger to the wind, maybe to a British public that he thinks has under-appreciated him. Or maybe to the traditional mores of the Labor Party, whom he sold to BAE Systems and Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. He has an epiphany, and says the ‘uprising’ in Egypt has to be ‘managed’. Presumably by himself.

  • Silvio Berlusconi thinks it is all amusing and tries again to call Hosni Mubarak’s dancing ‘niece’.

  • Sarkozy gets chronic ED, so he calls for air strikes on Qaddafi in Libya (expletive self-censored).

More reactions later. Cheers
mhg

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