Culture, Iran, Mujahideen Khalq, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Politics

No Eliot Ness: Mr. Freeh, Prince Bandar, Iranian Mullahs, Cult Money, Hoover and MacArthur…………

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Louis Freeh, former chief of the FBI, currently reportedly sort of lobbyist for Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, advocate for Iranian exile cult Mujahideen Khalq (MEK, MKO), opining on the organization and its ruling dynasty of several decades, Masoud and Maryam Rajavi. In the New York Times.
Hoping to replace the repressive theocratic mullahs with a shadowy dictatorial cult based on a husband-wife dynasty, with deep pockets.

Here is what Harper’s Magazine said about Mr. Freeh:
“Louis Freeh: What some people will do for money. Former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh says $2 billion that flowed from a British arms manufacturer to U.S. bank accounts controlled by Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then Saudi ambassador to the U.S., was not a bribe, but was instead part of a complex barter involving the exchange of Saudi oil for British fighter jets………… Richard Clarke, a top counter-terrorism advisor to Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, and others said they have concerns about Freeh’s defense of Bandar. “Someone who characterizes himself as a U.S. patriot and national security advocate ought not to be on the side of someone blackmailing………”

Tsk, tsk. J Edgar Hoover, for all his alleged oddities, would never do that, become an agent for some absolute medieval potentate. Nor would Eliot Ness. But the princes have deep pockets. The Mujahideen Khalq, whose leadership lives in luxury in Paris, coincidentally also seem to have deep pockets. Deep enough to pay fat speaker fees to the likes of: Rudy Giuliani, Gen. Hugh Shelton, Bill Richardson, Howard Dean, Gen. Wesley Clark, Ed Randell, et al.
(Can you imagine Generals MacArthur and Eisenhower and Bradley doing this lobbying shit for potentates and shadowy cults? Hell, even Scarlett O’Hara wouldn’t do that).
Cheers
mhg


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Death Penalty, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

Head-Chopping Absolute Reformers of the Arabian Peninsula……….

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“The king of Saudi Arabia is once again making headlines for overturning a court ruling that sentenced a woman to ten lashes for driving a car. For many, this is further proof that King Abdullah is a force for moderation and reform. Fareed Zakaria, for example, has called the Saudi dictator a “man of wisdom and moderation.” Then again, the king could also have considered stopping the recent beheading of Abdul Hamid Al Fakki for the crime of “sorcery.” Instead, he chose to do nothing. While the residents of Salem in 1692 would be proud, modern pundits would do well to hold their praise for the monarch. Al Fakki was arrested in 2005 after he supposedly agreed to put a spell on a man to leave his second wife. In fact, Al Fakki was entrapped by a member of the Saudi religious police and reportedly beaten and coerced into a confession. The one-minute video of his beheading is surely one of the most horrific scenes I have ever witnessed………..”

The writer adds this link to the video of the beheading of the foreign “sorcerer”. Don’t watch it before dinner.
Cheers
mhg


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

Update on Suggested Newt Gingrich Hike in the Middle East…………

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Update about that possible Newt Gingrich hiking trip to the northern Iran-Iraq border. It might also help identify him if he takes his hair-dresser along. Oh, and the TV make-up kit: that is an important identification tool, unless he wants to go incognito. All that will also help identify him once the mullahs decide to release him sometime after November 2012 (not that he has a chance, but the mullahs want to relive their Reagan-Carter 1980 glory days).

Cheers
mhg


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

Update on Suggested Newt Gingrich Hike in the Middle East…………

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Update about that possible Newt Gingrich hiking trip to the northern Iran-Iraq border. It might also help identify him if he takes his hair-dresser along. Oh, and the TV make-up kit: that is an important identification tool, unless he wants to go incognito. All that will also help identify him once the mullahs decide to release him sometime after November 2012 (not that he has a chance, but the mullahs want to relive their Reagan-Carter 1980 glory days).

Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Iran, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism, US Foreign Policy

Celebrities: Was Café Milano Behind the Assassination Plot?………….

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“I mention this because the Saudi ambassador’s purported fondness for the place is merely the latest instance confirming that Cafe Milano has become the most fashionable restaurant in Washington, DC., without ever entering the usual intermediate stage of becoming one of the best. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it or anything. Zagat says a bit snottily that it’s got “chow that’s ‘better than you’d expect,'” but shouldn’t the chow be fabulous at such a place? (Zagat also says that “unless ‘your name regularly appears on the Washington Post’s front page,’ prepare for ‘long waits’ and ‘smug’ treatment.”) I can name half a dozen Italian restaurants in DC that offer better food, usually at lower prices. And I don’t get out all that much. Yet celebrities, especially Hollywood celebrities, adore the place. I’m no reverse snob. ………..”

They say Italian food goes best with a good bottle of compatible vino. Of course that is what they say. I wonder if the Ambassador/minion/now celebrity fully enjoyed the fare. And no, I am not hinting that Café Milano, mediocre food and all, was behind the ‘Keystone Cops plot’. Not some kind of twisted publicity stunt, maybe some other kind of stunt.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

The Iranian DC Bombing Plot: was it Too Fast and Furious? WTF Analysis………..

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“Iran’s supreme leader and the shadowy Quds Force covert operations unit were likely aware of an alleged plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, but hard evidence of that is scant, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The United States does not have solid information about “exactly how high it goes,” one official said…………… The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said their confidence that at least some Iranian leaders were aware of the alleged plot was based largely on analyses and their understanding of how the Quds Force operates. They said it was “more than likely” that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Quds Force commander Qasem Suleimani had prior knowledge………….”

Not only does the story of the plot look like a Hollywood B-movie (Reagan peaked too early as an actor). The aftermath is even worse. Now we hear that they think it “likely” but “without hard evidence”, that it was based largely on “analyses and understanding how…”. WTF kind of case is this exactly? Normally any court of law outside the Middle East would blow this case out to the middle of the (Pacific) ocean. Next we’ll hear Tony Blair blowing the trumpet of another Gulf war based on this. This whole thing is moving too fast and furious for total credulity.
Cheers
mhg


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Ali Khamenei, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Iran

The Marshal and the Ayatollah : What Went Wrong in Egypt………….

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“The scene in Egypt looks grim. More than eight months have passed since Jan. 25, when the sparks of revolution finally brought Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule to an end. Yet we have witnessed no real policy changes from the provisional Military Council. The postrevolution era is marked by as much—if not more—brutality as faced the Egyptians during Mubarak’s reign as witnessed by the dozens of Copts killed in recent clashes. The censorship of journalists, bloggers, newspapers, and other publications continues. It seems that the confiscation of journalistic work has become a defining characteristic of the postrevolution era. Worse, nothing suggests that the Military Council will surrender its authority to an elected civilian president in the near future, despite their statements to the contrary. An addiciton to power has taken hold, especially in the mind of Marshal Tantawi………..”

Just as I wrote here: the military will be the supreme power, with some elected politicians suffocating underneath it. Just like in Iran where elected politicians are subservient to an unelected leader. Ayatollah Tantawi, meet Marshal Khamenei.
What went wrong in Egypt is simple. The people did not finish up the ‘revolution’. They kept the old regime intact except for the top two or three men. Lenin had it right in 1917, at the beginning, by insisting on a complete overthrow of the old order, as did the Iranian Ayatollah in 1979, as did Castro in 1959. Unfortunately those three old revolutionaries failed to create free societies: they got rid of their ‘democratic’ partners and replaced the bad old orders with bad new dictatorships.
Now the military junta is set to share power in Egypt: it is the Egyptian version of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). They will share power, but they will be first among ‘equals’, at best. This suits the Arab oligarchs fine, they are sighing with relief: the SCAF is now using the same divisive sectarian tactics (vis-a-vis the Christian Copts) that are used by the Saudi and Bahraini regimes in the Gulf. But the brave Egyptian people need to make another final push to be rid of the military junta.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, US Foreign Policy

The Iran Embassy Plot and My old American History Professor, about the Maine……….

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“Iran has never conducted — or apparently even attempted — an assassination or a bombing inside the US. And it is difficult to believe that they would rely on a non-Islamic criminal gang to carry out this most sensitive of all possible missions. In this instance, they allegedly relied on at least one amateur and a Mexican criminal drug gang that is known to be riddled with both Mexican and US intelligence agents……..”

My ‘educated impression’ is that most people in the ‘wider’ Arab world have strong doubts about all this. By that I mean people from Iraq through Lebanon to Egypt and North Africa. That is among those who care at all: most are too involved in their own struggle against their rulers. Most Saudis tend to believe the story because of the tensions between their country and Iran and also because their major media, like Iranian media, is government-controlled or owned by princes (Alarabiya, Asharq Alawsat, etc, etc). Most people in the Gulf GCC states, with the likely exception of Bahrain, also tend to believe this story. But that is the Gulf: most Sunnis believe anything that is publicized against Iran and most Shi’as suspect anything that is publicized against Iran.
As for myself: some aspects of the story just sound too silly, as if written by someone to raise public anger, especially the quote about “who cares if 100 or 150 innocent people die in the restaurant, f–k them!” I just can’t help thinking of the USS Maine and Havana harbor. (I had a very skeptical American history professor as an undergraduate. He was especially hard on the USS Maine incident and Mr. Hearst and his ‘special little Cuban friend’. He just ‘knew’ how the Spanish-American War started. Fortunately, most history professors in the United States tend to be skeptics as well, a very healthy thing).
(Clearly his ‘true’ history about Havana harbor made a strong impression on me. I won’t tell you what he called President Polk about the Mexican war).
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, nuclear Iran, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

Cause or Effect? Bombing an Ambassador, Bombing Nuclear Talks, Remembering Havana Harbor…………

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“However, to extend those operations to US territory would represent a significant leap in scope and ambitions. The way the plot was conducted would also suggest that the ruthlessly efficiently QF had lost its touch, being clumsy enough to transfer money from accounts under its control directly to US bank accounts. Robert Baer, a former CIA agent with long experience of observing the QF, said: “This stinks to holy hell. The Quds Force are very good. They don’t sit down with people they don’t know and make a plot. They use proxies and they are professional about it. If Kassim Suleimani was coming after you or me, we would be dead. This is totally uncharacteristic of them.”……… Any remote hope of resumed nuclear talks is dead for now. More sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions will be on the table instead…….…”

Okay, an Iranian plot uncovered. Ergo: “More sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions will be on the table”. It is a matter of “cause and effect”, cause and effect. Or is it “effect and cause”? Quite confusing. Reminds me of the USS Maine at Havana Harbor.

Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Israel, Palestine, Salafi

Palestine Salafi History: Ben Yehuda and Abdulwahhab……………

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“On October 13, 1881, a short time before moving to Palestine, Eliezer Ben Yehuda held what is thought to be the first modern conversation in Hebrew with two friends at a Paris café. That moment became the impetus for Ben Yehuda’s at times tortuous revival of the language, which for centuries had been relegated solely to the written word. Upon his arrival in Palestine later that year, Ben Yehuda began testing his belief that Hebrew formed the sole common lingual connection between Jews of all backgrounds. Indeed, although taught only as a written language, he succeeded in holding basic conversations in the long-lost language from the moment he stepped off the boat in Jaffa…….. One of the most serious obstacles to the modern revival of the language, however, continued to pose problems for the education that was being endowed on the first generation of Hebrew schoolchildren. Having been relegated to the written language of religious texts for so many centuries, Hebrew lacked many of the modern words necessary for mundane and simple conversation…………..”

Ben Yehuda was what we might call a ‘Salafi’ in the Middle East (perhaps a little stretch here). A Salafi is someone who goes back to precedents and predecessors and follows what he (never she) believes they would have done. That is a true puritan Salafi, a Salafi on paper, unlike the Salafis we have around the Gulf region who are extremely opportunistic. They wouldn’t be able to revive anything, let alone a dormant language. The modern Salafis often refer to Jews as “descendants of pigs and monkeys”, which tells us what they truly think of the old Prophets (all of them except one). They also come close to worshiping tribal polygamous princes, but that is okay, they also like the polygamy part (well, one aspect of it) and they like the funding. Ben Yehuda was a bright Jewish “Salafi”, what we have in our region are mostly dumb and bigoted and primitive Salafis who have nothing useful to contribute. They do cause a lot of harm. I suspect that the late Imam Mohammed Bin Abdulwahhab (of Nejd) was probably the last truly Salafi cleric, although no doubt he was also as bigoted as the more recent version. He also gave us Wahhabism and this whole “effing” Salafi movement that is much more harmful than, say, the Ba’athists.
(I am not going to repeat my old info about distinguishing the Arabian Imam Mohammed Abdulwahhab from the late great Egyptian singer and musician Mohammed Abdel Wahab who as not a Salafi, probably didn’t know wtf the term meant).
Cheers
mhg


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