cyber war, Espionage, Iran, Israel, Muslims, Racism, Saudi Arabia

Israel and the West: only Arab and Muslim Hacking is Terrorism, Ours is Kosher………

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“Israel said on Saturday that it will respond to cyber-attacks in the same way it responds to violent “terrorist” acts, by striking back with force against hackers who threaten the Jewish state. The message from Deputy Foreign Minister Dany Ayalon came after a self-defined “Saudi hacker” from a cabal known as “group-xp” published details of more than 6,000 Israeli credit cards online. “It is necessary to send a message to everyone who attacks or tries to attack Israel, including in cyberspace,” Ayalon said in quotes published widely in Israeli media. Hackers stand warned, he said, “that they are putting themselves in danger and that they will not benefit from any immunity against reprisal actions from Israel.” Cyber-attacks amount to “terrorism that must be treated as such. In cyberspace, we have active capacities and we can hit those who try to hit us.” Ayalon also applauded the United States for declaring that “all attacks in their cyberspace will be considered as a declaration of war and they will react as if it had been a missile attack………..”

The great and very useful term of “chutzpah” must have been created for a situation like this. No wonder the Iranian officials always talk about arrogance and arrogant powers. I have thought they were being repetitive and self-righteous and boring. Now, I am see that the West and the Israelis are as repetitive and self-righteous and boring (almost more boring over the past year or two).
Western powers and Israel have been sending viruses and worms and hacking into computer systems all over the world in recent years, especially Iran. Just look up Stuxnet and Duqu and others. Western and Israeli media publicly brag about their hacking and worming prowess against other nations and their ability to disrupt industry and communications. Yet when they receive some of their own medicine, as some Saudis recently hacked into Israeli systems and published secret data, they threaten war. All I can say for now, very succinctly, is: WTF?
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Iran, Lebanon, NATO, Persian-American Gulf, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Turkey and Iran and the West: Containment from the Gulf to the Mediterranean…………..

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“Iran and Turkey said Thursday they planned to double their trade volume despite having political differences on Syria and a NATO radar shield on Turkish soil. “Our annual trade volume currently stands at 15 billion dollars but we hope to double it in the near future,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said in a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in Tehran. Despite the plan to increase trade, the two sides did not seem to have settled political differences, especially on the situation in Syria. ……….”
 
“Middle East powerhouse Turkey on Wednesday warned against a sectarian cold war in the region and said rising Sunni-Shiite tensions would be “suicide” for the whole region. “Let me openly say that there are some willing to start a regional Cold War,” Foreign Minster Ahmet Davutoglu told state-run Anatolian news agency before heading to Shiite Iran. “We are determined to prevent a regional Cold War. Sectarian regional tensions would be suicide for the whole region,” Davutoglu said, adding such effects would last for decades. “Turkey is against all polarisations, in the political sense of Iran-Arab tension or in the sense of forming an apparent axis. This will be one of the crucial messages that I will take to Tehran.”…….. Davutoglu is expected to hold talks in Tehran later on Wednesday on Iran’s nuclear programme and developments in neighbouring Iraq and Syria………..”

Davutoglu, with the talk of “Sunni-Shiite tensions”, seems to be jabbing the Saudis and their allies who have been stoking sectarian hatred for a few years now, especially along the Gulf. For a while there was talk, mostly in some Arab oligarchy media, of an Iranian-Turkish-Qatari-Syrian alliance. The Turkish role was exaggerated: after all Turkey is an old NATO member and a longtime friend of Israel. The Qatari role was also exaggerated: Qatar shares a huge offshore gas field with Iran and is also wary of Saudi attempts at hegemony over the GCC states. A Saudi-sponsored coup attempt against the Emir was thwarted in the late 1990s, with several high Saudi security officials arrested and jailed in Doha (they were released last year). Saudi media and the Wahhabi faux-liberal media on the Gulf were full of condemnation of a mythical Qatari-Iranian-Syrian-Iraqi-Hezbollah axis. It was supposed to be an “axis of evil” as opposed to the “axis of goodness and democracy” of Saudi Arabia-Bahrain-UAE-Taliban-Mubarak-Wahhabi shaikhs.
Now the Turks and Iranians are on opposite sides in Syria. Now the Saudis and the Turks and the Qataris are on the same side in Syria (almost on the same side: the Salafis and Wahhabiized Muslim Brothers of Syria are not exactly what the Turks like). The Turks are now seen by some Arabs as a counterweight to Iran, a NATO and a Muslim counterweight in Syria. There may be some complications: the Syrians and the Arabs have always claimed that the Turkish region of Iskandaruna (Alexandretta) is part of Syria and that it is occupied territory, just like the West Bank. That is another issue to ponder as the Turks and some Arabs get close enough to each other to start disliking each other again (all that stuff about familiarity breeding contempt). The West probably sees a two–pronged approach to contain Iran:

(1) The Persian-American Gulf to be “defended” by the Western forces, mainly the US Navy, that are clogging it now. Of course Iran has not attacked anyone in the Gulf yet, nor does it have any intention of attacking anyone “first”, Saudi and Salafi propaganda and fear-mongering by the Bahrain satraps notwithstanding.
(2) The Eastern Mediterranean to be “defended” by NATO, with the Turks as the main player. Lebanon is probably considered, wisely, very iffy: a majority of the people want no Western military forces, certainly no Israeli forces or outside Arab forces either. Lebanon was tackled with Western “intelligence” operations and Saudi money (a lot of Saudi money for such a small country). So far it has failed: Saudi princes are not exactly lovable, charismatic, or principled creatures. They can never buy love with money (not that kind of love), nobody can. This is not to say that the Iranian mullahs, or other Arab leaders, are very lovable either. Many are barely more lovable than Netanyahu or Lieberman (Avigdor not Joe).
 
Breaking Syria away from its Iranian alliance is the main prerequisite for success in the Eastern Mediterranean now. The pro-Saudi Syrian opposition (the Salafis, Muslim Brothers, some former military officers, even others, now seem to want Western (NATO) intervention against the regime. They want to be liberated by the West just as Iraq was liberated in 2003 and Libya was liberated in 2011.
After that, the Saudi camp hopes their Israeli allies will be able to soften Hezbollah and Lebanon.
More on this later……
Cheers
mhg


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Cinema, Culture, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Creativity in a Theocracy: One Iranian Film on its Way to the Oscars………….

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“Yet since his film’s premiere early this year, Asghar Farhadi has found success inside and outside his home country with “A Separation,” the film resonating with audiences who read it alternately as a deeply felt domestic drama and a finely crafted sociopolitical allegory. When the film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, it walked away with the Golden Bear, the festival’s top prize, as well as awards recognizing the film’s lead actor and actress. The film, which opens in Los Angeles on Dec. 30, has gone on to be one of the most universally celebrated of the year. It was recently still running a rare 100% rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on more than two dozen reviews. It was a box office hit within Iran and was chosen to represent the country as its submission for the Academy Award for best foreign language film………..”
 
I find it interesting that under the repressive theocracy Iranian films have thrived. Arguably the best films in the Middle East over the past three decades have been produced in Iran, with many of them winning international prizes. I have always thought that is because film-makers, like all artists and authors, need to get more creative and more subtle in their messages under less open regimes. (North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and the Taliban would be exceptions to this rule).


The Iranians may have some competition at the Oscars. My unreliable source tells me fhe Saudi government is working on a film about the life and times of their Mufti Shaikh al Al Al Shaikh. Meanwhile the al-Nahayan rulers of the UAE plan new film about their late father Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahayan. The film may star Sean Connery or Abe Vigoda (assuming he is alive): one of them will play Zayed, the other his brother Shakhboot whom he overthrew and made to disappear along with his sons. None of the films will cover the loves and marriages of the two worthies.
Cheers
mhg


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Horn of Africa, Iran, Persian-American Gulf, US Foreign Policy

Iranian Faces and Egg: USS John Stennis, the Muslim Arab Pirates, about Hormuz……….

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“Iran on Saturday welcomed the rescue of 13 Iranian sailors by a U.S. Navy ship, calling it a “humanitarian act……….. The sailors were on a fishing boat that had been hijacked by pirates in the Arabian Sea, near the Strait of Hormuz. According to the Navy, a helicopter from the destroyer USS Kidd spotted a suspect pirate boat alongside the Iranian vessel on Thursday. The destroyer is part of the USS John Stennis Strike Group, which moved into the Arabian Sea from the Persian Gulf last week………..”

Somebody in Iran have egg on their faces today.
So the Iranian IRGC commanders and a couple of ayatollahs made a lot of the departure of the USS John Stennis from the Persian-American Gulf last week. Some of them warned the US navy ship not to return to the Gulf, or else.
Sure enough, the USS John Stennis Strike Group was not about to return anytime soon. Nobody knew it was on a divine mission for these same ayatollahs. It was destined to save a lot of Iranian sailors and fishermen from Somali pirates, from fellow Muslims (and full-fledged member of the Arab League although the Arab depots seem not to care about how many Somalis are killed or starve every year).
Apparently the Somali pirates have now expanded their theater of operations beyond the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden. They are now at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, threatening the petroleum waterway.
Cheers
mhg


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Human Right, Israel, Middle East, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Amnesty & NDAA, AIPAC-USA and the Middle East………….

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“Despite expressing serious reservations, the Obama administration has paved the way for legislation that will authorize indefinite detention. The bill places enormous power in the hands of future Presidents, and the only answer the President has is to say “trust me.” “Once any government has the authority to hold people indefinitely, the risk is that it can be almost impossible to rein such power in. President Obama has failed to take the one action – a veto – that would have blocked the dangerous provisions in the NDAA. In so doing, he has allowed human rights to be further undermined and given Al Qaeda a propaganda victory.”……… Amnesty International

He said, “Trust me”: famous last words? . Yet will he be in power a year and two weeks from now? Or will it be the Likudniks and Salafis of the Republican Party?
Mr. Obama is increasingly offering the people who supported him a ‘sort of’ Hobson’s Choice: accept this thing as it is or just live with it as it is. The Obama administrations is more like the Kadima of Ariel Sharon and Tzipi Livni as compared to the Likud of Netanyahu and Yisrael Beitenu of Lieberman (Avigdor not Joe). It has to show that it is as “tough” as the hardliners by bowing and buckling to the hardliners, which makes it seem not so tough after all.
For the Middle East it is like the difference between the frying pan and the fire since both American parties have contracted out (the term du jour is outsourced) their Middle East foreign policy to Netanyahu, Lieberman, and the Israeli Likud coalition. The next U.S. president may be the first ever to nominate a political lobbying organization for secretary of state: AIPAC.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Culture, Egypt, Salafi

Egyptian Cinema: What Next? Salafi Cinema?………….

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“The sweeping victory of Islamists in the first two rounds of Egypt’s first parliamentary elections after the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime raised liberals’ concerns over a variety of issues, on top of which was the future of the film industry under a conservative government. The debate between a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader and a prominent liberal director served to give an insight into the aspects of the problem. Head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Film and Drama Committee Mohamed al-Naggar started with objections to the labels liberals sometimes give to types of films to distinguish between what is conservative and what is not. “There is nothing called a Brotherhood film or a leftist film or a Nasserist film,” Naggar told Al Arabiya’s Parliament Race. Naggar explained that unlike what many people think the Muslim Brotherhood are not against cinema and do not believe that it is against Islam. “On the contrary, cinema like any art is an integral part of human nature.” What the Brotherhood cares about the most, he pointed out, is the production of movies that represent the values of society. “We cannot reduce a movie into a couple of sex scenes because this does not reflect the reality of women in Egypt.”………”

Egyptian Cinema had its golden age during the 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s. It started to decline with the beginning of the 1970s. There have been a few good films in the past four decades, but most of the films have been lousy and I have avoided them. The golden age of Egyptian cinema was also the period of social freedom. With the advent of the Sadat and Mubarak regimes, Egyptian society began its descent into quasi-Wahhabi restrictions and decline. This was also reflected in the arts and in culture in general, from novels to plays. There have been some good Egyptian writers since, but nobody like Mahfouz, Toufiq al-Hakeem, Taha Hussein, among many others.
Egyptian cinema was not too far behind international films in those days. Great actors like Yosuf Wahbi, Fareed Shawqi, al-Mileegi, Hussein Riyadh, Omar Shareef, and many many others. Great comedians like Naguib el-Reehani, Adel Khairi, Ismail Yasseen, Mary Muneib, and others. Not to forget great actresses like Fatin Hamama, Fatma Rushdy, Hind Rustum, among others.
Look for the Egyptian cinema to decline further under the new regime, especially as it seems almost certain now that the Salafis will be part of it. Yet Islamic rule does not have to mean decline of the cinema: there is one example of the opposite happening. I think I will do my next posting on that.
Then the Salafis may want to bring Egyptian cinema to the level of Saudi cinema, meaning non-existent since there is no cinema industry or cinema theaters in Saudi Arabia (alles verboten).
Cheers
mhg


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Culture, WTF

Bon Appétit en chinois: Deadly Pussycats of Guangdong…………

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“The tycoon was famished, the hot-pot stew was bubbling, and the flesh floating in the broth was feline. But in the end, cat meat was not what killed billionaire forestry CEO Long Liyuan a few hours after he consumed the delicacy. It was poison……… In a case that would make even Sherlock Holmes lose his appetite and has triggered an uproar among Chinese animal-rights activists, police in China’s southern Guangdong province, notorious for its love of eating “everything with four legs except desks,” detained one of Long’s dining companions last week in connection with his death on Dec. 23. It appears the suspect, Huang Guang, the deputy director of a local forestry office, had led the tycoon and another associate to the restaurant after visiting a wooded area that was for sale. The authorities allege that once they had ordered the cat dish, Huang stepped away to make a phone call and then surreptitiously made his way into the kitchen. There he sampled the cat meat, announced it needed to boil longer and asked the restaurant owner to go buy some drinks while her husband was off buying cigarettes. Alone at the stove, Huang then dropped the deadly herb Gelsemium elegans, which grows wild in China’s forests, into the hot pot…………”

All I can say is: Bon Appétit.
(FYI : we are dining at P.F.Chang tonight, but there will be no red meat on the table. Not tonight, not for a few days. How about you ? imagine Machboos Gtawa!)
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Freudian Arabian Size Insecurity? Duel of the Gulf Towers……..

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Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal al-Saud claims that his new tower, Kingdom Tower, will be cheaper than the Burj Dubai (aka Burj Khalifa) by about US$ 270 million. The tower will also be bigger than the Dubai one, the biggest in the world. The Kingdom Tower will have a Four Seasons hotel, serviced apartments, luxury condominiums and offices, encompassing about half a million square meters.
The project is being constructed by the Bin Laden company, yep that very same guy. Which makes me wonder: wtf is going on here between these potentates of our Gulf? All this comparison of tower sizes, and trying to outdo the others. Remember the Mecca clock tower that the Saudis want to surpass Big Ben? Is all this a subconscious attempt to make up for other more serious short-comings among some of these potentates? Is it an Arabian Freudian thing?
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Human Right, Saudi Arabia, Slavery

The New African Slave Trade, Arab Spring in Nejd…………..

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“The recruitment of housemaids from African countries is proceeding at a very slow pace as Saudi families still prefer workers from south Asian countries, according to the chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (JCCI) recruitment committee. “Ethiopia is the most popular African country for Saudi families to import housemaids from, but the large number of requests and routine procedures in Ethiopia often delay the recruitment process,” Yahya Hassan Al-Maqbool told Arab News on Monday. Al-Maqbool said the decision of Indonesia to stop sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia was still in effect. He said Saudis show very little interest in recruiting maids from Kenya, especially in the western provinces, but said there was a small demand for them in the eastern and central parts of the country. Al-Maqbool played down warnings issued by the Kenyan government to their women citizens not to go work in Saudi Arabia and said the media usually blow up even the smallest of issues. He said compared to other countries, the number of Kenyan housemaids in the Kingdom is very small. A number of websites on Sunday published clips of a Kenyan documentary film on the working conditions of housemaids in Saudi Arabia. Warnings in Kenya against sending housemaids to the Kingdom increased following the recent murder of a Kenyan housemaid in Jeddah…….……..”

Indonesia stopped sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia because some of them have been beheaded over there and there are many others on death row waiting for their heads to be chopped off. There have also been cases of foreign housemaids being tortured and killed by their employees. Apparently the Saudis can’t do without foreign housemaids, even though local unemployment is in the double digits (and over 30% for young adults). The government is heavily involved in “regulating” the work conditions and the wages, in the sense of negotiating with exporting countries for lower wages and a continuation of inhumane work conditions.  Their national motto seems to be borrowed from an old American campaign slogan: “Two cars and two maids in every house“.
I predict that if all foreign countries refuse to send housemaids to Saudi Arabia to be abused, then the country will truly revolt. Only then will the Arab Spring reach the heartland of Nejd. So, the fate of the Saudi regime is in the hands of Indonesia, India, Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Persian-American Gulf, War on Iran

How Iran Closed the Strait of Hormuz…………

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“By a media trick, Tehran proved its claim that closing the Strait of Hormuz is as “easy as drinking water,” debkafile reports. First thing Saturday morning, Saturday, Dec. 31, Iran’s state agencies “reported” long-range and other missiles had been test-fired as part of its ongoing naval drill around the Strait of Hormuz. Ahead of the test, Tehran closed its territorial waters. For five hours Saturday, not a single warship, merchant vessel or oil tanker ventured into the 30-mile wide Hormuz strait, waiting to hear from Tehran’ that the test was over. Instead, around 0900 local time, a senior Iranian navy commander Mahmoud Moussavi informed Iran’s English language Press TV that no missiles had been fired after all. “The exercise of launching missiles will be carried out in the coming days,” he said. For five hours therefore, world shipping obeyed Tehran’s warning and gave the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, a wide berth. They stayed out of range of a test which, debkafile’s military sources report, aimed to demonstrate for the first time that Shahab-3 ballistic missiles which have a range of 1,600 kilometers and other missiles, such as the Nasr1cruise marine missile, are capable of reaching Hormuz from central Iran……..….”

If true, this was done by stealth, sort of. It was actually done by consent. I wouldn’t advice doing it by force, for the reaction may be different, will surely be different. The USS John Stennis is somewhere in the Indian Ocean, serving the Afghanistan operations. It is not staying away because of the Iranian warnings. As long as the Iranians understand this fact, understand the firepower we are talking about, there is no need for concern.

Cheers
mhg


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