Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Salafi, US Foreign Policy, Yemen

Houthis of Yemen: Facing the Saudis, Facing the GCC Salafis, Queen of Sheba………

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      BFF

“A fractured picture of a post-Saleh Yemen is starting to emerge as Houthis battle Salafists in the north of the country. If no solution to the strife is found soon, it may snowball into an uncontrollable situation, possibly leading to sectarian war. Tensions between the two groups have now reached fever pitch. This was made abundantly clear in a press conference held by a number of journalists at their syndicate’s headquarters in Sanaa after returning from a visit to Dammaj. It soon emerged that the journalists were conveying only one point of view, demonstrating a bias towards the Salafists. They maintained that the people of the Dammaj region had been suffering from a seven-week blockade by the Houthis, who were preventing food and medicine from entering. This prompted a pro-Houthi audience member to rebuke the journalists’ claims. He distributed a statement, signed by a member of the Houthi political bureau, Abu Malek al-Fichy, claiming that there is an attempt to distract the revolution youth with secondary issues. But the media escalation did not stop there. It intensified with the fighting on the ground, especially after Yemen’s Salafists vowed, during a conference held Wednesday under the slogan “Supporting the Oppressed in Dammaj,” to defend themselves by all legitimate means. They accused Houthis of “striving to establish a Shia state in the north of Yemen and south of Saudi Arabia.” The recent tensions in the north have raised questions about Houthi plans for the future, especially after they had announced their refusal to accept the Gulf initiative and its implementation mechanisms………….”

This rejection of the GCC plan for Yemen explains why some GCC potentates in their media have recently started blasting the Houthis again. They are renewing something they have not done since after the Houthis defeated the Saudi military incursion in their country in 2009. The lightly and pitifully armed tribesmen, having dispatched the Saudi military that is among the best armed in the world, are now in conflict with the Salafis, who are the Saudi proxies. That is not necessarily to say the Houthis are sweethearts, they are not. They tend to be fierce independent fighters, and they are almost as reactionary as any Saudi potentates, but not nearly as corrupt (but then who in the world is as corrupt as the Saudi potentates?). No group in Yemen are sweethearts, probably not since Bilqis the Queen of Sheba went sweet on King Solomon (or maybe she had to).
The GCC deal looks like a joke now, with (not yet former) president Saleh calling the shots in Yemen. He is playing Putin to his own Medvede (wtf that be).
Cheers
mhg


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Humor, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, North Korea, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

The Iran Bomb: Comparing a North Korean Voter to an American Voter………

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      BFF

What is one difference (or the similarity if you prefer) between a North Korean voter (I know, North Koreans don’t vote, but humor me) and an American voter?

North Koreans are told and believe the following, among other things: that the Americans want to bomb North Korea and obliterate it with nuclear weapons and only the WMD of Kim Jong Il are keeping them at bay. Kim Jong Il and his sons Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Nam and Kim Dim Sum may also believe that.
 
Americans are told by the media and some politicians and ‘may largely’ believe the following, among other things:
The Iranians are building nuclear weapons which they will immediately use to destroy Israel. After that they would love to use their Hiroshima vintage bombs to trigger Armageddon or take over the world and make it a safer place for the awaited Mahdi (their Messiah). One pre-condition of all that is to bomb Europe back to the good old day of May 1945. Hence all the missiles deployed in Turkey and soon in other places near Iran. All that may have been corroborated by Saudi Intelligence, the shaikhs of Abu Dhabi, the Saudi ambassador in Washington, John Bolton, and one Texas screw-up named Mansoor Arbabsiar (I know you expected me to say Rick Perry). Provided that the End of Time and Rapture and the Christian right and the Republican Party do not beat them to it.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Persian-American Gulf, War on Iran, WMD

The Beatles and Iranian Intentions: Western Fools on the Hill of Nuclear Intelligence……….

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“But the fool on the hill,
Sees the sun going down,
And the eyes in his head,
See the world spinning ’round.
Well on the way,
Head in a cloud,
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him,
or the sound he appears to make,
and he never seems to notice,……” Les Beatles

“It was the Little Interventionist Tony Blair who first began sanctions on Iran. And the build-up of hostilities has unnerving parallels with the case for war conjured by Blair and George Bush against Iraq. We have another dodgy dossier, in the shape of the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which claims Iran is developing nuclear weapons but says so largely on the basis of intelligence which ends in 2003. It relies on documents on a laptop, found in 2004 by the Israelis, whose reliability prompted deep scepticism among Western intelligence at the time. The foreign scientist said to have worked on a bomb with the Iranians turned out to be a nanotechnologist. And a former IAEA chief inspector has said the type of explosion chamber referred to in the report could not be used in a nuclear test. On that, is based hawkish noises and sabre-rattling sanctions. Intelligence chiefs publicly say such things as, the West must use covert operations to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme. Politicians make thinly veiled threats of military attack using weasel words such as “all options are on the table”. Pardon me if it feels like Iraq all over again……… But Iran is a big, politically sophisticated country whose constitution of parliament, president, councils and assemblies of religious experts, creates a system of checks and balances in which change is possible. Reformers have held sway at times in this political pluralism. The Iranian establishment is fragmented into factions; a third of MPs did not vote for the measure to reduce the diplomatic status of Iran’s relations with Britain last Sunday. But it is precisely the wrong reactionary factions which are strengthened by the bellicosity of the West. And make no mistake, the war has begun. …………”

The West gets some of its ‘intelligence’ from certain Iranian exiles, and from the Israelis, not exactly an impartial source. The Israeli Likud would love for the Iran nuclear program to dominate the news so much that people would forget all about the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They would love for the world to focus on any other issue, HIV-AIDS, Global Warming, Tax Cuts, the War on Drugs, Dr Phil, anything but the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Israelis get some of their ‘intelligence; from certain Iranian exiles.
Everybody else relies on Tony Blair and the Saudi royal family and Alarabiya (which belongs to the Saudi royal family) for intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program. Some are beginning to rely on the ruling al-Nahayan clan of Abu Dhabi for ‘intelligence’.
 
This does not mean that I have reliable intelligence that the Iranians are NOT working on a nuclear weapon. For all I know they could be in the last stage of making a Doomsday Bomb. I have no idea, but I would never believe what the IAEA or the UN or the US intelligence or British Intelligence or Israeli intelligence or Iranian intelligence or Ahmadinejad say about the Iranian program. That is what I learned from Iraq. And the writer is right, they are pushing the same arguments they used before the invasion of Iraq (which I supported at the time), and it is very likely based on faulty or downright fake information. The true goal is not nuclear weapons, it has to do with a balance of power in the Middle East.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Culture, Human Right, Libya, North Africa

North Africa: an Amazigh Revival?………….

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“Najwa Alazabi has another first name, Tiarina, but under Muammar Qaddafi’s rule she could never use it. Tiarina is a traditional name of Amazighs, a North African ethnic minority also known as Berber, and expressions of the Amazigh culture and script were forbidden in Qaddafi’s Libya……… The Amazigh are the original inhabitants of North Africa. Generations of conquerors have slowly eroded the Berber culture and language, while conversion to Islam and the promotion of Arabic as the language of God encouraged assimilation. Qaddafi’s policy of strict Arabization struck a final blow to their identity. Under his rule, Amazigh names, cultural symbols, and their written language were all forbidden. Amazigh activists were routinely harassed and, often, imprisoned. The Amazigh make up approximately eight or nine percent of Libya’s 5.7 million, according to Berber scholars, although after centuries of mixing between Arabs and Amazigh, no one can be sure……….Today, their conception of the own identity can carry some contradictions. Many view their culture as both different and not so different from that of Arabs. Defining themselves in opposition to the dominant Arab identity of Libya could bring them trouble in a country known for strident Arab nationalism…………”

Don’t expect any real improvement of the lot of the Amazigh. Not unless they force the issue. The new leaders were fed from the breasts of Muammar Qaddafi and his regime.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, GCC, Gulf states, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, Saudi Arabia

Riyadh Gathering of Flunkies: no Iranians, but a Turki and a Gargasha from UAE, Mutual “Satisfaction”……..

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““Iran is escalating tension in the region and the world at large,” said Prince Saud Al-Faisal, minister of foreign affairs, in a speech read out by Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Saud Al-Kabeer, deputy minister for multilateral relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs…….. The remarks by Prince Saud came as another blow to the Iranian policy after Europe ramped up pressure on Tehran following attacks on the British Embassy in Tehran last week………. Speaking on the role of GCC states in changing the international landscape, Anwar Mohammad Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, expressed his concerns on the Iranian nuclear program. He, however, said that the GCC had emerged as a strong bloc with unified approach and with capacity to solve issues confronting the region. “This is evident from our support to Bahrain, where troops from the GCC Peninsula Shield were sent to protect vital installations,” added Gargash…………..”

The dour mullahs or their representatives were not invited, which led me to call it a GWTW without Rhett or Scarlett. So these third and fourth tier GCC flunkies met in Riyadh, all appropriately scowling in the style of flunkies on my Gulf to show some missing gravitas. Presumably with a select gaggle of invited foreigners, to discuss Gulf security. They read speeches written for the potentates, who did not attend, from Prince Saud al-Faisal to prince Muqrin.
Instead of security, the focused on bashing Iran and its ruling mullahs. Not much of a conference, if that is what it was. Not sure what the point of the thing was. A bunch of Saudi and UAE and Bahrain and other retainers meeting in Riyadh and exchanging the very same opinion with each other, extolling the Saudi invasion to crush the Bahrain uprising. Nothing new added, no value added. Just repeating the same usual shared mantra, sort of like mutual masturbation (wtf that be).
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

U.S. Campaign Hiking: Gingrich goes to CMU instead of Iraq-Iran Border, no Rice & Rice………….

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“Former House speaker and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has picked a foreign policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to be his national security adviser. Kiron Skinner directs CMU’s International Relations and Politics department and also services on the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel and service on the Council of Foreign Relations. Skinner has previously served as an adviser on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the Defense Policy Board of the U.S. Department of Defense from 2001 to 2007. Skinner will continue to teach full-time on social and decision sciences at CMU, but will be on call to advise Gingrich………”

Clearly Newt Gingrich doesn’t like to stray far from the ‘reservation, at least in matters of picking policy advisers, if not in ‘other’ matters. His choice is somewhat better than Romney, who picked a veteran of the right-wing and genocidal Lebanese Forces militia (apparently Romney feels that he needs to shore up his right-wing credentials). But, hey, the day is young, and I have not looked in Mr. Skinner’s closet yet. This almost certainly means that he, Newt, will decline my advise to take a hike on the Iraq-Iran border, preferably making a two-feet sortie across the border. Dommage.
Gingrich is also eschewing the Bush-Obama-Clinton trend of seeking high profile female foreign policy advisers (Albright, Rice &Rice). Maybe ‘somebody’ has learned something after all.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Finance, Iran

Iran TEPIX, NYSE, NASDAQ, Blankfine, Cramer, Cain………..

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      BFF

“The main index of the Tehran Stock Exchange, TEPIX, has soared to a record high, despite the US-led sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran. The benchmark index gained 240 points to close at an all-time high of 24,356 on Sunday, IRNA reported. The surge was mostly due to Iran’s copper, steel, and petrochemical industries as investors traded shares worth $36.4 million. The Tehran Stock Exchange, founded in 1967, has been one of the world’s best performing stock markets in recent years and ranked as the best bourse index in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East in 2010 in terms of performance of the main index……….” Press TV (Iran)

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprise. The US economy is still in the doghouse, but the NYSE and Nasdaq have soared in recent weeks. Yet clearly trading on the TEPIX is not exactly very deep. At a daily trade of $36.4 million, Lloyd Blankfine can do more trading than that. Hell, Jim Cramer can do more trading than that. Hell, Hermann Cain can trade that much after he sells his book that he ran for president to promote.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Human Right, Iran, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, UAE, US Foreign Policy

Rommel of Arabia in Yemen, the Vast Shi’a Conspiracy to Conquer Abu Dhabi and the World………….

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      BFF

“When the world is focused on the uprisings in Egypt, Syria and the President of Yemen’s agreement to step aside, the spotlight has been diverted from the threat posed by Yemen’s Al Houthi Zaidi Shiite, pro-Iranian rebels. With an estimated 100,000 fighters, the Al Houthis harbour not only an expansionist agenda but the will to topple the government and impose their own brand of Shiite religious law on the entire country and beyond. They have made territorial claims to a number of Saudi villages and in 2009 they battled with Saudi forces. For the Al Houthis, the Yemeni armed forces’ preoccupation with maintaining security on the street has been a gift. Over the past 10 months they have succeeded in expanding their territorial control from their homebase Sa’ada into four Yemeni provinces and over the main crossing points into Saudi Arabia……..n recent days, Shiites have been demonstrating against the Saudi government in the city of Qatif in the oil-rich Eastern Region, where anti-royalist slogans have been scrawled on walls. The kingdom’s mufti blames Iran for the unrest, credible when Iranian clerics are calling for an end to the Al Saud ruling dynasty………”

Predictable piece of rubbish by a retainer of the al-Nahayans rulers of Abu Dhabi, in one of their own newspapers. He is writing mainly about the Yemeni Houthis, who in 2009 totally defeated the invading high-tech Saudi armed forces under Prince Khaled Bin Sultan al-Saud. (Saudi semi-official had all but declared Khaled as the Rommel of Yemen, and he did have the same fate as Rommel at El-Alamein).
In the process, this writer also accuses Saudi Shi’as who are seeking equal rights of being Iranian agents. He is also throwing in a majority of the peoples of Bahrain and Iraq (most likely Lebanon as well) as foreign agents.
Funny: the UAE of the Bin Zayed Bin Sultan al-Nahayan brothers is groaning under the weight of foreign bases, from American to British to Pakistani to Monaco-an to Klingon. Not to mention the foreign mercenary force the al-Nahayan formed early this year with Blackwater veterans and Colombians, Australians, white South Africans and others. It is all part of the vast Shi’a conspiracy, I tell ya.
And what is wrong with wanting to overthrow the al-Saud, along with the mullahs in Iran and the despots in Manama? Anybody with any sense would want that.
Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Finance, religious police, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

More Saudi Reforms: Commission for the Propagation of Vice arrests Cafe Couples..……

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      BFF

“Saudi Arabia’s feared religion police smashed a prostitution ring in the Gulf Kingdom’s second largest city, involving at least 20 airline stewardesses of Arab nationality, a newspaper reported on Sunday. Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice had watched the ring for more than four months in a bid to trap its leader, who was also caught with the other members, the Arabic language daily Sabq said in a report from the western Red Sea port of Jeddah. “The ring leader had been very careful and had managed his ring only by phone. It took the Commission members at least four months to get him,” it said. The paper said the Arab ring leader was hunted when Commission members, acting on a tip off, seized a stewardess with a Saudi man at a coffee shop……….”

One has got to be careful here. The Saudi religious cops have their own definition of “vice”. After all, these goons are now threatening to force women to cover (as too sexy) the only part of them that they are allowed to expose. That would be their eyes, especially sexy expressive eyes that drive these polygamous perverts crazy.
So they caught her with a man sipping lattes at a coffee shop and that is evidence of prostitution. Imagine if they were caught having a full meal together at a restaurant: that is the Saudi equivalent of ‘going all the way’. The fact that she was with a “Saudi” man is apparently also considered some kind of proof. The logic of the Commission for the Propagation of Vice goes like this: otherwise, why else would a woman be with a Saudi man? Unfortunately it is a common “logic” on the shores of my Gulf (and apparently the Red Sea as well).
Maybe that is all they do when they hook up in Saudi Arabia: drink some coffee together.
Cheers
mhg


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9/11, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Iran

Taliban Chutzpah in Iran and Afghanistan and Egypt………….

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“Until two months ago, Hamid had spent the better part of the past decade under house arrest in Iran, he said, after being detained entering the country when Afghanistan fell to coalition forces in late 2001…….. Now, after a sustained lobbying campaign by family members, Hamid is free. We met back in his Egyptian homeland nearly two years after we first began talking online, a months-long conversation (and, at times, debate) we had over email about our respective ideas. “I thought Iran intended to hold me forever,” he said when we met at the cafe. “They denied that I was there but after the campaign from my family, my presence became known and if the outside world knows someone is there, then they have a chance of a deal being made for their release.” Hamid knows more than most about the machinations driving Iran’s detention and release of foreign fighters who had illegally crossed its borders; he served at times as the unofficial Taliban emissary to the country. But he hotly contests that he represented al Qaeda or its interests to the government in Iran, as is alleged by the United States. “Al Qaeda did not send me, nobody sent me. I made the proposal to Mullah Omar to reach out to Iran when he came to visit us in the village south of Kandahar airport, in 1997, and he agreed.” The proposal Hamid recounts would have been part of efforts aimed at unlocking the Iranian embargo that later intensified after several Iranian diplomats were killed in 1998 by Taliban forces at Mazar-i-Sharif…………”

He was an al-Qaeda man: the Arabs in Afghanistan were all al-Qaeda, not Taliban. To say that those Iranian diplomats were “killed” by “Taliban forces” is an understatement. Actually those Iranian diplomats at Mazar-e-Sharif had their throats slit in public by the Taliban when they took the city. That is not simply killing, that is like what al-Qaeda did to American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. It is interesting that the Taliban were outraged because the Iranians would not help them in 2001. Some Arab Salafis on the Gulfnare still bitter about that, that Iran in 2001 did not help the Taliban who during their rule slit the throats of Iranian diplomats and persecuted most Afghans not just Shi’as. That is what their former and future Saudi allies would call Taliban chutzpah.
Cheers
mhg


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