Religion, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics

Alibi of Scoundrels: God of Wall Street vs. God of Intolerance…….

    

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“Mitt Romney’s campaign believes it would take divine intervention for the former Massachusetts governor to lose the GOP nomination. A top campaign aide said during a briefing Wednesday that it would take “an act of God” for Romney’s opponents to overtake him for the nomination, according to Yahoo News………”

“Former Pennsylvania Gov. Rick Santorum said Wednesday that it winning the Puerto Rico primary on Sunday, where 20 delegates are at stake, would be an act of divine intervention. At a church in San Juan, the devout Catholic encouraged his supporters to “continue to pray, not just for me, not just for my family, although I want to encourage you to continue to pray for me and my family.” “One of my opponents recently said that it would take an act of God for me to win this primary. I agree with him,” Santorum added…………”

Oh, God (not the God of Wall Street, nor the God of intolerance)……….. Can’t wait to hear what Newt Whatishisface has to say about this.
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Espionage, Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Iranian Nuclear issue, American Nuclear Issue, Conventional Strategic Issue…..

    

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“Intercepted communications of Iranian officials discussing their nuclear program raised concerns that the country’s leaders had decided to revive efforts to develop a weapon, intelligence officials said. That, along with a stream of other information, set off an intensive review and delayed publication of the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified report reflecting the consensus of analysts from 16 agencies. But in the end, they deemed the intercepts and other evidence unpersuasive, and they stuck to their longstanding conclusion……… As a result, officials caution that they cannot offer certainty. “I’d say that I have about 75 percent confidence in the assessment that they haven’t restarted the program,”…………….”

““There is not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts,” the former official said. The Times reported last month that U.S. intelligence analysts continue to believe there was no hard evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear bomb. The latest assessments by U.S. spy agencies are broadly consistent with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program …….….”


Which deserves a resounding: WTF?
This seems to confirm my long-held suspicions: the noise about Iran has little to do with a nuclear program. It has a lot to do with broader Middle East balance of power. It has to do with pressure from the Israeli/American right-wing (and perhaps the Saudi princes). It is part of a struggle for influence in the Middle East.
The Israelis want Iranian influence in Lebanon and Syria reduced, but without the risk of an Islamist Salafi resurgence (in Syria) that would actively reopen the Golan file. Syria is a focus target, with the potential of a complete break with Iran and an alliance with the Saudis and their  right-wing March 14 proxies in Lebanon. Lebanon can be partly affected, but it would be unrealistic for it to have a complete break with Iran and join the Saudi camp (the demographics are against it).

The Saudi princes want to consolidate their hegemony over the Gulf GCC states and to dominate the Arabs of the eastern Mediterranean. A tough, nay impossible, job. In the process, they want Iranian infrastructure and military power destroyed by the Americans and Israelis. That would open the door for their money to move into the vacuum in Syria and perhaps regain influence in Lebanon. The Saudi princes want to play the same role they tried in the 1980s, when they armed and financed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran and urged the West to do the same. We all know what Saddam did in 1990 right after the West pulled his nuts out of the fire.

Everybody in America is making ‘appropriate’ noises about the “nuclear” issue; even Obama is being pushed to it by both his right-wing opponents and by Democrats in the U.S. Congress. Especially so with the Republican candidates vying to outdo each other in Likud-orchestrated crazy rhetoric, rhetoric that seems to embarrass some past and current Israeli officials (not Netanyahu and Lieberman).
Cheers
mhg


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Britain, censorship, Iran, Media

Mutual Hypocrisy: Britain Bans “Press TV”, Iran Blocks “UK for Iranians” Site ………

    

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“Britain has condemned Iran for blocking a website aimed at explaining the United Kingdom and its policies to Iranians. Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday that barring the British government’s “UK for Iranians” site — three days after it was launched — proves “the Iranian authorities fear their own citizens’ interaction and involvement with the outside world.” Britain says Iran blocked the site on Saturday.………”

Blocking websites and radio stations and television networks is a reprehensible form of censorship and thought control. Conventional, but incorrect, wisdom in the West has it that it is expected of the Iranians to block website and other media outlets, and that the British don’t do such things. But they do, as do other Europeans although not nearly on the scale as some Middle East regimes like the Iranians (and others).
Odd for the British foreign minister to complain about the Iranian regime blocking the British website. It was only a two months ago that the British government blocked the Iranian television network Press TV from being seen in the country (it was banned last January).  It is, as William Hague would say, as if the “British authorities fear their own citizens’ interaction……“
In American-ese: what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
It is spelled h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y in Britain as well, and both the British and the Iranians have plenty of it.
Cheers
mhg


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AIPAC, Iran, Pakistan, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Iran and Pakistan and the Vanished Arabists of America………..

    

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“Pakistani officials confirmed Wednesday that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had withdrawn from plans to head a consortium that would finance the $1.6-billion Pakistani portion of the cross-border pipeline, apparently over concern that the bank could be excluded from the U.S. economy.
The move suggests that even Chinese companies, which have staunchly resisted U.S. and European efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear program, are beginning to bend to the sanctions on Tehran. China’s unwillingness to fully cooperate had been one of the greatest challenges to the international effort to put economic pressure on Iran. China’s decision is a setback for the Pakistani government, which fears that dire energy shortages could lead to civil unrest as well as economic strain. Pakistani officials said they would press ahead with the project, which would deliver more than 750 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from Iran’s South Pars field. They said they would find replacement financing.………….”

The United States administration has been trying to derail this gas pipeline project for some time now. Pressure on the Pakistanis and offers of a more expensive pipeline did not work, and the Chinese for a while seemed impervious to pressure as well. Blocking this pipeline will harm Pakistan much more than Iran, especially beyond the short term. That country is facing a deepening energy crisis and the vast Iranian gas fields are the closest and most efficient source for it. Iran has the largest reserves of natural gas in the world outside Russia, and it has no shortage of clients, especially beyond the short term.
The Obama administration’s State Department is now firmly under the control of the Likud-niks; which means that administration foreign policy itself is under Likudnik control. The old Arabists are long gone from the corridors of power, replaced by Likud-niks. The term “Arabist” itself is now probably a suspect nearly derogatory term at Foggy Bottom and in Washington; in the U.S. Congress “Arabists” can get stoned these days.
Cheers
mhg


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Britain, Corruption, Culture, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Buying the Soul of Britain, Raping the History of Islam, Sacking Mecca……………

    

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“He (David Cameron) did not understand that the readiest alternative to public money is not the free market. If a public servant needs a fortune fast, he can turn to Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and the other oil-rich dictatorships……… All the dictatorships ask in return is that Britain’s cultural institutions sell their souls. They are more than happy to haggle………..Saudi Arabia provided exhibits. The Saudi royal family’s King Abdulaziz Public Library partnered the museum. HSBC Amanah, a bank that issues sharia-compliant loans, sponsored the show. By negligence or design, nothing in the exhibition offends the Saudi state, which derives legitimacy from its control of sacred sites and income from pilgrims. You might have thought that of all people the museum’s director, Neil MacGregor, would deplore cultural vandalism. The author of A History of the World in 100 Objects would surely deprecate the destruction of buildings of historical significance. He must know that Saudi’s monarchical dictatorship has wrecked Mecca with an abandon worthy of the Taliban. It has destroyed the remnants of the 7th-century city, most notably the houses of the prophet, his first wife and Abu Bakr, father of Aisha, one of Muhammad’s other wives. According to the Wahhabi monarchy’s puritanical and iconoclastic version of Islam, anything that generates idolatry – images of the prophet, homes associated with him – is dangerous. So medieval Mecca had to go………..”

This piece does not cover all factors behind the crime of destruction of historical Mecca. I have written more than once on this subject, as have others. It is not all Wahhabi ideology that doomed the monuments of Mecca. Historical Mecca was destroyed by a combination of Wahhabi Salafi dogma against history and the greed of the princes and developers. You see, land in Mecca has become too valuable, a result of the explosion of the Hajj pilgrim tourism. The closest to the Holy Mosque a location is, the higher the rent and hotel costs. Historic houses of the Prophet Mohammed and the early Sahaba were replaced with 5-star, 6-star and 7-star hotels and condominiums. Greed by the potentates used the Wahhabi doctrine against history to take over some invaluable property and rape the very history of Islam. That was robbery of something that belonged to the whole Muslim world, not just the princes.
As for David Cameron, he is no different than that other corrupt prime minister, Tony Blair who bent British laws and institutions for the benefit of the al-Saud princes and Muammar Qaddafi and other despots. This is buying the soul of British institutions. It has been going on for some years, and it will accelerate under the Tory PM.
Cheers
mhg


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Israel, Palestine

La Vie (Palestinienne) en Rose: Another Arafat in the Palestinian Circus?……….

    

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“Des yeux qui font baisser les miens
Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche
Voilà le portrait sans retouche
De l’homme auquel j’appartiens

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose……..“ Edit Piaf (La vie en rose)

“The widow of the late Yasser Arafat has said the resistance leader sacrificed their marriage and a relationship with the couple’s only daughter for the Palestinian cause. In a rare interview with CNN, Suha Arafat shed light on the difficulties of being married to a man she described as the “Nelson Mandela of the Arab world”, and said he pushed her away to focus on achieving an independent state. “Everyone was saying: ‘She left him’,” Mrs Arafat told CNN’s Connect the World show. “I had to leave because he obliged me to leave him because he said: ‘I am becoming the new revolutionary again’.” He paid for the cause, she said, “with his life”. “He did not see his daughter. He told us to go out because he did not want us to stay in Palestine.”…….”

I, and everyone I ever knew, always believed that Suha Arafat was the one who made the biggest ‘sacrifice’ in that marriage to Yasser Arafat. It was obvious (to put it delicately).
Just what the Palestinians need right now, another clown in the circus. There is the fundamentalist Hamas in Gaza, the impotent bickering PA in Ramallah, and now Suha Arafat representing the Palestinians from the comfort of maybe Paris (?). Yet she might liven things up a bit.  She should liven up the West Bank political debate (Gaza is too Islamist fundamentalist for a Christian used to la vie en rose). Come to think of it, there is no political debate among Palestinians, life is simple: PA and Israel control the West Bank, Hamas controls Gaza.
One thing is certain, she will be more outspoken than the tired men of Ramallah. Another thing for certain: she ain’t no La Pasionaria of Spain.
Cheers
mhg


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Human Right, Middle East Women, Racism, Saudi Arabia

Holy Airlift! Two Ethiopian Maids in Every Saudi Home…….

 

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“Saudi Arabia plans to import 45,000 Ethiopian nationals into the kingdom every month in order to meet its requirement for domestic workers. Maids from the African nation have been in high demand since the Gulf’s most populous nation placed a ban on recruiting workers from the Philippines and Indonesia after those countries imposed stricter employment conditions, the Saudi Gazette reported. Noor Adeen Masfa, Vice Consul for Economic Affairs in Jeddah, said his department had met with committees from the Ethiopian Ministry of Labour in a bid to facilitate the transfer of Ethiopian workers to the kingdom. However, the lack of sufficient flights between Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and Saudi hubs has caused delays………..”

This after the Indonesians refused to export their women without adequate pay and better treatment. Indonesian women were the favorite in the kingdom, but some of them have been executed by beheading and there are reportedly some 21 of them waiting on death row in the kingdom. The Philippines also have put some conditions and limits on the abuse of their female citizens. Now it is the turn of Ethiopia. Forty five thousand per month. At this rate they’d need flights straight out of Addis Ababa dedicated for this type of ‘trade’. It would be quite an airlift, a ‘holy airlift’, no doubt general-ed by prince Khaled Bin Sultan, the defeated ‘hero’ of the  Huthi War.
They’d eventually have enough to provide every house with an Ethiopian housemaid. I suspect this must be part of their new Five-Year Plan: to have two foreign housemaids in every home.
I just hope they’ll allow these people to practice their religion freely (openly or secretly). This is, after all the domain of King Abdullah whom Western PR firms advised to sponsor a “dialog of faiths”. A dialog of faiths in Spain, France, Britain, Germany, Luxembourg, the USA, etc, etc, etc. Anywhere but not in Riyadh or Taif or any other place in Saudi Arabia, where there are no churches or synagogues or temples, where private group worship at homes is seriously frowned upon. ‘Seriously’ means public flogging, maybe some prison, then deportation. At least they don’t get beheaded, unlike sorcerers and witches and magicians. In the absolute Wahhabi Kingdom without Magic.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

“Saudi Arabia helped ruin Bahrain…….”

 

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“Exactly one year ago, I was in Doha to speak at the Al Jazeera Forum, where a remarkable group of Arab politicians, intellectuals and activists had assembled to talk about the seemingly unstoppable momentum of the changes sweeping the region. Moncef Marzouki, then a human rights dissident and now President of Tunisia, told me about his hopes for crafting a genuinely democratic constitution — hopes which al-Nahda leader Rached Ghannouchi assured me he shared. Tareq el-Bishri gave a long speech about how Egypt’s 1952 revolution gave way to despotism and military rule; the youth activists in the audience could hardly mask their boredom with the old man, but perhaps should have listened more carefully. The Libyan revolutionaries at the conference were treated like rock stars, as were the youth activists from Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries. The mood was celebratory and electric, though tinged by anxiety over the atrocities in Libya and reports of Qaddafi’s forces moving towards Benghazi.
But in retrospect, the week of March 12 marked the precise turning point away from the “New Hope” of those dizzying Tahrir days towards the grimmer, darker political struggles to come. I never made my scheduled trip from Doha to Manama. That week, the Empire struck back: Saudi Arabia helped ruin Bahrain……….”
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Iraq, Racism, Syria

Kurds of Syria and Iraq: Victims of Baathist Racism and Chauvinism……….

 

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“Syria’s Kurds appear divided and unsure whether to join the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad as they marked the anniversary of bloody clashes between the Kurdish minority and security forces in 2004. Syria’s Kurds live mostly in the north-eastern border region with Iraq and Turkey, and make up 10-15% of the population. For decades the authorities have discriminated against the Kurds for fear that they might seek self-determination. Many were denied citizenship under a controversial law in the early 1960s………”


Both branches of the Baath Party early on showed signs of racism and chauvinism, something borrowed from the European Fascism and Nazism that influenced the early creators of that party (Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, both Syrian). Syria’s Kurdish community have been a long-time victim of Ba’athist Nazi-like chauvinism and racism. Just as Iraq’s Kurds were long victims of Ba’athist tribal racism and genocide. No wonder the Kurds are insecure and not sure which side to join. The most likely sad fact is that both sides in Syria were likely racist and chauvinistic toward them (not that the other Syrians had anything special to feel superior about; they certainly did not).
The Kurds in Iraq could not be denied citizenship because there are too many of them in their own historic national homeland, and they probably have been there longer than the Arab tribes.
 
The Iraqi Baath regime also deported a couple of hundred thousand Iraqi Shi’as from the South in the early 1980s, sending them across the Iranian border. That was a big mistake: these Iraqis married and multiplied while in Iranian exile and grew to probably close to two million. And they are fluent in both Arabic and Persian, with tight family and cultural links across the border. And they are all back in Iraq now. Big stupid Baathist mistake, but then who said the Ba’ath are any smarter than other despotic Arab regimes?
Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Syria, Terrorism

Terrorism: Ducks of Damascus, Salafis in Syria……….

 

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“Two bombs hit the Syrian capital of Damascus early Saturday morning, killing at least 27 security forces and civilians, according to state-run TV, which broadcast an awful scene of bloody carnage. The blasts reportedly came from car bombs targeting the government’s aviation-intelligence department and criminal-security department buildings. A reporter from the Associated Press said shooting broke out shortly after the blasts—the latest in a string of suicide bombings that have killed dozens of people since late December. As usual, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime said “terrorist forces” behind the yearlong uprising were responsible for the attacks, though the opposition says government forces had strategically set up the bombings to tarnish their reputation………”

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, quacks like a duck, lays eggs like a duck, then voila! It is a duck! This was an act of terrorism. It would have been called “terrorism” in London, in Paris, in Riyadh, and in Oshkosh (WI), so why not in Damascus?
The Syrian regime has nothing to gain by showing the world that Damascus is not secure. Unless they do it to blame the opposition. Yet the cost to the regime may be higher than the benefit. Maybe.
The opposition has much to gain by showing the world that Damascus is not safe. No, I am not saying Burhan Ghalioun was the perpetrator, not even the neo-fascists of the Not Free Syrian Army. But the most likely culprits in this terror bombing are the al-Qaeda or other Salafi terrorists. They have been filtering “back” from Iraq into Syria, bent on indiscriminate murder (in Iraq most of their terror murder was quite “discriminate”).
Cheers
mhg


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Multidisciplinary: Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, GCC, World, Cosmos…..