“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
“Some Bangladeshi expatriates in Bahrain say they have been forced to take part in pro-government rallies. They have told the BBC that their enforced participation has provoked retaliatory attacks from the country’s majority Shia population. A Bangladeshi community leader said that two expatriate workers had been killed on Tuesday and shops owned by Bangladeshis were attacked. The authorities in Bahrain have not commented on the claims. There are 100,000 Bangladeshi expatriate workers in Bahrain, more than 300,000 Indian expatriate workers, 60,000 Pakistanis and about 30,000 Nepalis. India and Nepal both say that their citizens are safe, but advised them to keep a low profile…………”
Only a minority of the citizens of Bahrain support the regime now. To get enough people, enough bodies to demonstrate for the regime, to show on television and on You Tube, they need to tap the huge pool of foreign laborers. They need to coerce Asian and other laborers to go out and look excited abut the al-Khalifa shaikhs, a tough act. It is almost a type of human trafficking, to add to that other type of trafficking.
They already depend on Asian mercenaries (as well as some from Jordana and Syria and other Arab states) to control Manama. Now they have resorted to exploiting the Asian “civilians” for propaganda purposes, putting them in harm’s way.
“Yet another deadline passed late last month in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” this time over the initial exchange of proposals on border and security issues. Palestinian negotiators were (and remain) under pressure on a number of fronts. The Quartet still holds to a resumption of talks under the current guise and a recent visit from Ban Ki-Moon called for “a gesture of goodwill by both sides” in order to create a positive atmosphere for continuing negotiations……….”
This looks like just a way to keep Tony Blair doing something other than making a lot of money serving various Middle East potentates and Central Asian petroleum dictators. He is right here: it is time for Tony should to form a new quartet, a barbershop Quartet of Persian Gulf potentates and Central Asian dictators. (I don’t think Tony is on the payroll of J P Morgan anymore; that was during ‘the deal’ with Qaddafi). Then he, and they, can sing their hearts out away from the media. Then we won’t have to see his deceptive sanctimonious face and his asinine statements and platitudes about world affairs. Moony at the UNshould declare the Quarter dead and done with because in fact it is deader than a doornail. Cheers
mhg
“Americans most frequently identify Iran as being the United States’ greatest enemy, a Gallup poll released on Monday indicated. According to the data, Iran topped the list of the biggest enemy to the U.S. with 32 percent of respondents, up from the 25 percent who selected Iran in a 2011 survey. China is a relatively close second with 24 percent, and North Korea a distant third at 10 percent. Gallup’s World Affairs poll was conducted February 2-5, using a random sample of 1,029 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia…………..”
It is possible some people in the United States would have the same strong hostile feelings against Mother Teresa of Calcutta if she had been the target of such sustained vilification by the media and by politicians for several years. (I am not excluding Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich from these feelings, not yet). In the past few weeks, mainstream media and kookes alike have made it seem like the West has some kind of entitlement, some right, to wage an unprovoked war on Iran. No wonder the “average” American puts Iran at the top of the list of “mortal” enemies: he has been fed weeks of propaganda and warmongering. As I said, they would put Mother Teresa at the top of the enemy list had she been the target of such media assault (I exclude most Catholics but not all from that, maybe). I suspect that something like 50% would support waging a war of choice on Mother Teresa after such a sustained media blitz. 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
“The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned. Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles away in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students’ names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed. Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly…..…..”
The NYPD must have a federal-size budget, and a federal-size ego, to take on itself the task of spying on Muslim students outside its jurisdiction of New York City and across other states. Cheers
mhg
“Russia’s foreign minister said after Damascus talks on Tuesday that President Bashar al-Assad was “fully committed” to ending the bloodshed in Syria even as regime tanks pounded the central city of Homs for a fourth straight day. Sergei Lavrov said he had had a “very useful” meeting with Assad and that Moscow was eager to work towards a solution based on an Arab League plan that it had previously criticised. “We (Russia) confirmed our readiness to act for a rapid solution to the crisis based on the plan put forward by the Arab League,” said Lavrov, adding that Syria was also ready see an enlarged Arab League mission in the country, Russian news agencies said……”
Of course Assad is committed to ending the violence. The problem is that he seems to want to end it his own way: by killing off the opposition. That would end the violence, but if the opposition refuses to be killed off, then it goes on. Qaddafi also tried to end the violence by finishing off the opposition, but NATO would not allow him. The al-Khalifa regime in Bahrain is doing the same, but on a smaller scale mainly because the people are protesting peacefully. The Western powers liberated Libya from its dictator, just as earlier they had liberated Iraq from its dictator. Syrian opposition and impotent Arab potentates want the West to intervene again militarily and change the regime in Damascus. They were check-mated by the Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN in their efforts to do a repeat of Libya in Syria. Will they still do it in Syria in this election year? It will certainly be a tougher nut to crack given that the regime is organized and well-armed (they can do some damage to NATO warplanes and tanks). Besides, Assad still has some regional and international allies (Iran, Russia, China, Lebanon, a few others).
Will they do it? Ich weiss nicht. Cheers
mhg
BFF “For years, U.S. citizens have not been able to fly legally to Cuba from the United States. Some travelers found their way around the ban, slipping in through Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean. This was time-consuming, costly and a bit risky……… Looking for a deal to Cuba? Despite these changes, deals are still rare. Airfare is chartered, and with the U.S. government paperwork required, it is nearly impossible to put a trip together yourself. But deals can be found. Friendly Planet, one of the approved travel companies to bring U.S. travelers, currently has two programs (which include the Cuba entrance visa and all U.S. government paperwork). The four-night getaway costs $1,899 per person, based on double occupancy; similar packages from other licensed companies are selling for at least $2,400………” This isalmost like in the old “Communist” Soviet Union, when the state restricted travel. It is almost like trying to travel from old “Communist” Albania to any other country in the “free” or “communist” world. But wait, this is not the old USSR or Communist Albania, it is the USA, a free country, banning travel to Cuba, a “Communist” Bible-less dark-purple country. I am exaggerating a little, as usual. Both the USA and “Communist” Cuba seem to have one thing in common: both encourage the citizens of the other to come visit; both discourage their own citizens from visiting the other. So, they are not that far apart after all. Cheers
mhg
“The IRI is an international arm of the US Republican party, so anyone with the stomach to watch the Republican presidential debates might doubt whether this would be a “democracy-promotion” organization. But a look at some of their recent adventures is enough to set the record straight: in 2004, the IRI played a major role in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Haiti. In 2002, the head of the IRI publicly celebrated the short-lived military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Venezuela. The IRI was also working with organizations and individuals that were involved in the coup. In 2005, the IRI was involved in an effort to promote changes in Brazil’s electoral laws that would weaken the governing Workers party of then President Lula da Silva. Most recently, in 2009, there was a military coup against the democratically elected government of Honduras. The Obama administration did everything it could to help the coup succeed, and supported “elections” in November of 2009 to legitimize the coup government. The rest of the world – including even the Organization of American States (OAS), under pressure from South American democracies – refused to send observers. This was because of the political repression during the campaign period: police violence, raiding of independent media, and the forced exile of political opponents – including the country’s democratically elected president. But the IRI and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) – its Democratic party-linked counterpart – went there to legitimate the “election”……….The IRI and NDI are core grantees of the National Endowment for Democracy…………...”
I bet there are no offices for either IRI or NDI in places like Amman (Jordan), Manama (Bahrain), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Abu Dhabi (UAE), or Tehran (Iran), and all for the same reasons. You’d think the Saudi and Emirati and Bahraini potentates, with whom some Western (American and British) leaders profess a communality of values (?), would welcome these democracy-advocating groups. Otherwise, what are those hundred billion dollar weapons deals for, except to make sure democracy survives in these places? Yet all this tells me that now there is much more freedom in Egypt than in those places (any democracy is more than none). More than there was in Tegucigalpa (Honduras) when they went to Honduras allegdly to rubber-stamp the coup d’etat. All this does not justify these Americans being held by Egyptian authorities and tried. There has been no ‘crime’. I believe they ought to be freed: there should be no restrictions on advocacy in either Cairo or Tehran or Riyadh. Cheers
mhg
BFF “President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been summoned to the parliament to answer questions by lawmakers about a number of the administration’s irregularities. The move came after MP Reza Hosseini, the spokesman for the MPs who signed the motion, announced on February 1 that the MPs had not been convinced by the answers provided by the president’s representatives at a meeting which was held on the same day to discuss the reasons behind irregularities by the administration. Deputy Majlis speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar read out the text of the motion at the open session of the Majlis on Tuesday and said that the president will hopefully appear before the parliament to answer the questions in the first half of the Iranian calendar month of Esfand (February 20 – March 19). The motion calls for the president to answer questions about the administration’s failure…………..” Mehr News Agency
After reading this, the royal appointed rubber stamp Shoura Council felt invigorated, decided that it needs to question the king on some policy issues. They summoned the king over for questioning, whereby he summoned them back immediately and gave them the choice of being beheaded in public or castrated in public. They chose castration, as before a normal condition they are used to. Of course, the summoning of Ahmadinejad may be just another way at political castration by his political foes. He had been threatened with parliamentary impeachment in the recent past. Relations between him and the True Leader are not what they used to be. Hard to believe, but there are those who are even more conservative, more right wing, more Tea Party if you will, than Ahmadinejad. Cheers
mhg
BFF 
Rattlesnake Ridge 