Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Libya, NATO

Is the Libyan Insurgency becoming the Libyan War?…………..

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“With armed loyalists of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the fallen Libyan leader, still ensconced in his hometown and a few other redoubts as the seven-month-old Libyan conflict winds down, NATO announced a three-month extension of its bombing campaign on Wednesday. “We are determined to continue our mission for as long as necessary, but ready to terminate the operation as soon as possible,” the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said in a statement from the alliance’s Brussels headquarters. It is the second 90-day extension, and it was approved less than a week before the campaign was set to end…… As if to answer him, Britain’s Defense Ministry announced Wednesday that its warplane contingent in the NATO Libya operation had attacked loyalists’ military deployments in three areas. Tornado GR4’s hit targets in Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown, Surt; in the loyalist desert enclave of Bani Walid; and in the north-central town of Hun………..”

Now, is the formerly “Libyan insurgency” becoming the “Libyan War”, with NATO and a faction of the NATO-baked former rebels facing a new insurgency by Qaddafi loyalists? If Colonel Qaddafi and his Qaddafistas linger and regroup and the new Tripoli regime proves incapable of handling them, rooting them out. If, as the verse says. Libya covers a lot of ground, borders six countries and the sea. Yes it can, yes it can, but let’s hope not.
(I also wonder how they pronounce the middle name of Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Libya)
Cheers
mhg


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Israel, Middle East, Palestine, U.S. Politics, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

Next Year in Jerusalem, Next Year in New York, Next Year at the U.N.………….

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“Israeli officials: Palestinians routed, about to fold” YNet News (Israel)

“French president Sarkozy says UN will not vote on Palestinian state this year, promises a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli impasse within a year” Reports

Yesterday it almost looked like the Palestinian “authority”, never known for its backbone, had surrendered again. Reports quoted American and French officials that ‘negotiations’ will resume to reach a solution within one year. Sounds familiar? Remember 2009, when the new and “extremely naïve” Obama administration started negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians with a solemn promise that they will solve everything within one year. At that time I wrote here “forgetaboutit”. One year? It is too short a time to reach never.
The Jewish people have a mantra that they repeated during their long Diaspora , especially at every Passover Seder: “Next year in Jerusalem”. It kept them focused on the promise and the goal, which they eventually achieved. Now the Palestinians will have to adopt a new mantra “Next year in New York” or maybe just “Next year at the UN”.
Except it won’t be next year, or the year after, or any other year after, as long as the Likud and its right-wing allies rule the roost.
Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, Pakistan, Salafi, Terrorism

Post-Abbottabad: Salafi Blood-fest Continues in Pakistan and Iraq………

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“Gunmen in the southwestern province of Baluchistan attacked a bus carrying Shiite pilgrims to Iran on Tuesday, killing at least 25 people and wounding 6 more, local police officials said. The bus driver said that 8 to 10 attackers ordered the pilgrims off the bus and opened fire on them, the police said. Hours later, the extremist Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jangvi claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, which the authorities say carried out previous attacks against Shiites in Baluchistan, is believed to be affiliated with Al Qaeda. ……… Attacks on Shiite pilgrims traveling to Iran through Baluchistan have been frequent over the last decade. Two such attacks occurred last month. A year ago, 57 people at a Shiite rally in Quetta were killed by a suicide bomber. Shiites are a minority in mainly Sunni Pakistan. Most of the Shiites in Baluchistan belong to the Hazara ethnic group ….….”

I see that the Pakistani Salafis, like their Salafi brothers on my Gulf, are still busy spreading the message of brotherhood and love. Just like their imported virgin-inspired suicidal brothers are still doing in Iraq. If these horny fellows can’t get to their allotted ‘untouched’ virgins by killing Americans, then there are others, more vulnerable fellow Pakistanis or Iraqis or others. The execution of their shaikh of the hashasheen, the master terrorist in Abbottabad has not slowed this bunch down.
Cheers
mhg


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an>

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab League, Arab Politics, Corruption

Politics as a Joke: Arab Parliament, WTF Parliament, on Electing Dog-catchers……..

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I came across this headline today: “The ‘Arab Parliament ‘calls for freezing (or suspending) the membership of Syria and Yemen.” So I did some research about this and discovered the following items:
 
“Qatari Aisha Yusuf Al Mannai on Tuesday made history by becoming the first Gulf woman to be elected deputy speaker of the Arab Parliament.” Qatari? There must be a mistake: Qatar has no parliament, yet it has this lady as deputy head of an “Arab Parliament”.

Then I visited this site: “Welcome to arabparliaments.org This website provides user-friendly access to a host of parliamentary development resources, such as studies, policy guidance, translated documents, and links to networks and databases. It also serves to highlight UNDP-supported parliamentary development activities, mainly the Parliamentary Development Initiative in the Arab Region……………..”
Then I read this online: “At the Arab League Summit of 2001-Amman, the Arab states agreed to create an Arab Parliament, and came up with a resolution to give the Secretary General of the Arab League the power to start and create the Parliament. In 2004, in the ordinary Arab League Summit in Algiers was the official date where all Arab League Members agreed to send their representative to the temporary Parliament sessions that took place in the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, Egypt, with each member state sending four members, until the Parliament is reassigned permanently to its under-construction office in Damascus.”

Then I found one of my own old postings on this funny parliament: “They are trying to ape the European Union, with the false trappings of a “parliament”. They have chosen Damascus as the eventual permanent home of it. So, the absolute tribal monarchs, and the absolute despots who do not allow elections, and those who do would make sure who is elected, are serious about this travesty of democracy. There are about three Arab states that have elections where the rulers do not completely rig the voting. In one of these three states, Lebanon, foreign powers intervene, with help from their local surrogates, to try and determine who wins…….. I say scrape this body that was created to act as a fig leaf for lack of democracy. Saudi Arabia does not allow any elections for anything, not even for dogcatcher (one of my most favorite American terms), student government, or the PTA; yet it has representatives in this “Arab Parliament” appointed by the royalty. The same goes for some other states……”

So all the Arab countries have representatives in the Arab parliament: even Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the rest. Saudi Arabia? These countries don’t even have individual parliaments, but they have a joint appointed body that pretends to be a parliament, where the potentates select members. To be consistent, his Arab “Parliament” should freeze or suspend membership of about 19 of its 22 members, from Syria down through Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the UAE and on to Somalia (the last one being the southernmost Arab state). They should also change its name to the “WTF Parliament”.
Alles Klar???
Cheers
mhg


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Corruption, Culture, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Arabian Peninsula: between Salafi Wahhabi Dogma and the Greed of Potentates…………..

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“However there is more at stake than a new interest in heritage or a desire to attract tourists as part of the kingdom’s bid to diversify its overwhelmingly oil-reliant economy. As elsewhere, controlling history is key to power. The House of al’Saud has only ever been able to rule its kingdom with the collaboration and support of the largely ultra-conservative clergy. Reforms can be pushed through – such as the introduction of women’s education, which provoked rioting in the towns of al-Qassem in the 1960s – but only with the consent of the majority of clerics. For religious conservatives in the kingdom, any physical traces of history, even that of the first Muslims, is a distraction from God and raises the spectre of polytheism. So for many years, all traces of early worship within the kingdom, let alone of anything that might be deemed un-Islamic, have been destroyed. Scores of shrines, religious places, cemeteries and historical sites have been razed, damaged or built over. This is true even, indeed especially, in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. There is thus religious – and therefore political – resistance to preserving anything that is left. Mammon as well as God plays a role in the new contest of the kingdom’s history. Most recently there has been a row between developers who hope to build apartments………….”

Nothing in all history has done as much damage to the monuments and artifacts of the Arabian Peninsula’s past as the expansion of Saudi rule to cover the Peninsula some eighty years ago. The theocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has done what centuries of time could not: destroyed monuments from before Islam and especially from the early years of Islam. Ancient houses where the Prophet Mohammed and his early companions were born, lived, and prayed, have been torn down by an alliance of Salafi Wahhabi stupidity and dogma and the greed of the potentates and princes and their developer partners. In their place, high rise hotels and apartment complexes and shopping malls have risen.

Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Culture and Sports, UAE

UAE Crime Alphabet Soup: from a Local Ms. Bobbitt to Other “Cultural” News………….

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Headlines of the ‘court’ section of UAE newspapers are quite interesting. I think they reflect something about the culture of the country, the true culture of the population mix These are samples of the most recent in The National:

“A maid accused of cutting off her 77-year-old sponsor’s penis with a razor told the court today she was defending her honour. “I did what I did in revenge for all what he had done to me, your honour,” JN, 26, from Bangladesh, told Judge Hamad Abdul Latif at the Criminal Court of First Instance. When the the judge asked her why was she crying, she said, “Because I am sad, because he is in my father’s age.”………”

“The conviction of an Iranian office assistant, sentenced to 10 years for breaking into a woman’s home and raping her, was upheld today in the Dubai Court of Appeal. The 36-year-old SA was drunk during the incident in February. He was convicted of rape, trespassing and consuming liquor. The Indian victim, a service consultant, told prosecutors SA rang her doorbell about 4am. ………”

“A man tied up a trader, robbed him and beat him into giving up his ATM PIN code, a court heard this morning. MW, 31, Afghani, was charged with detaining SJ, also from Afghanistan, binding his legs and arms with tape, assaulting him, threatening to kill him, and stealing his money……….”


“A Frenchman who was refused drinks on a flight to Dubai after consuming three bottles of wine shouted abuse at an Emirates Airline crew, a court was told. AP, 35, smiled yesterday as he admitted at Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance to issuing threats and consuming alcohol on board flight EK74 from Paris to Dubai. AP threatened the Australian airline workers JL, 39, and DK, 29 on June 14, prosecutors said. JL testified that two hours after the flight took off, AP was intoxicated but still ordering DK to bring him more wine……….”
This man consumed three bottles of wine on a single flight. Only a true Frenchman can do that, or a wino at Pershing Square in downtown LA. And to think that this shrimp threatened an Australian! Whatever happened to that Crocodile Dundee image?

“A one-year sentence for a woman convicted of posing as an Emirati to work as a prostitute was upheld this morning at the Court of Appeal. MT, a 29-year-old Palestinian, was arrested in a sting operation and denied the charges. She was convicted of using another’s identity card, impersonation, obstructing justice and obtaining lost money…………”
You’d think she had impersonated Mary Magdalene not just some anonymous UAE chick.
I especially like all the initial they use: JN and DM tried to assault
XY who was smoocing with FU who is her BF, but BA, who was visiting DC
at the time called the police using the cellphone of KZ. OR this: VK
gave birth to JL but could not prove she is married to WTF who is back
in Manila, so the doctor, PU called the police. Sometimes I suspect that
everyone in the UAE drops their real names and become part of an
alphabet soup upon arrival, it is a requirement especially if they
intend to commit a crime.
I think I shall start hitting the “Court” pages of Saudi and Iranian newspapers, there may be treasures there I am not aware of yet.
(All this can be categorized under Culture, or maybe Culture and Sport).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, France, Iraq, Libya, NATO, US Foreign Policy

A Tale of Two Arab Despots, a Tale of Two Invasions, a Tale of Two NATO Elections………

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“Obama Praises Libya’s Post-Qaddafi Leaders at U.N. President Obama on Tuesday extended to Libya’s transitional leader a diplomatic honor never offered his predecessor, meeting formally with Mustafa Abdel-Jalil at the United Nations and heralding the victory of Libyan rebels who brought an end to the 42-year reign of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi……..”

“Qaddafi Calls New Libya Government a Propped-Up ‘Charade’. As world leaders at the United Nations were embracing the rebels who overthrew him, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi broke nearly two weeks of silence on Tuesday, denouncing Libya’s new interim government and predicting its quick demise once NATO warplanes end their attacks on his forces…….”

Qaddafi is just being Qaddafi: he couldn’t resist crashing the Obama party in New York. He still thinks he can prevail as soon as NATO gets tired and leaves. It is an interesting contrast between two Arab despots that were overthrown by Western forces. Saddam Hussein’s old Iraqi army deserted en masse in 2003, with hardly a bullet being fired against the “Coalition” forces. Saddam himself was found only months later in a hole. On the other hand the Iraqi people did not raise a hand either against or for the invasion.
In contrast the Libyans have had a short civil war which hopefully will not stretch and expand into a West African-style mess. The Qaddafi forces could not actually shoot at NATO forces, since the attacks came from the air, but they did shoot at somebody.
The Iraq invasion probably helped get Bush reelected one year later in 2004. He was reelected because one year was not enough for the American people to realize the costs of that war and the body bags had not started arriving in large numbers. Can the Libyan invasion help reelect Nicolas (Le Weasel) Sarkozy? Yes it can, unfortunately. In recent decades, the French voters have become notorious for talking a good talk and then turning around and electing the worst candidate available. They did that the last time. I suspect they will do so again in 2012.
Cheers
mhg


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Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon

A Song of Lebanon: Oh Cluster Bombs, Oh Cluster Bombs…………..

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“Lebanese Army General Mohammad Fahmy, chairman of the Lebanese Mine Action Center, knows by heart the names and types of cluster bombs and landmines scattered across southern Lebanon. They have killed over 3000 Lebanese. Since Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon, Fahmy has realized that the road to clearing the country from these weapons is a going to be a long and winding one………. Even though we have not yet achieved what we aspire to, we have made much progress in the past five years. At the very least, we are now able to give an approximate date for the completion of land clearance. We have worked for years to identify contaminated areas and have drawn up a comprehensive technical survey. We have divided the land into 1,277 sectors, of which 815 have been cleared so far. We prioritized areas of social and economic value for obvious reasons. The estimated number of landmines is 400,000. …………”

They were dropped over ‘select’ parts of Lebanon, mainly in the south, and over ‘select’ parts of Beirut, mainly the Southern Suburb. They were clearly aimed at the Shi’a (Shi’ite) population centers exclusively, with a couple of forays into other areas just as warnings. The goal was to keep the Hariri and Phalange base content, as well as some of the Arab oligarchs (al Saud, Mubarak) who openly sided against the Lebanese. That was when Condi Rice stated that the explosions and screams were the “birth pangs of the New Middle East”. Of course she was wrong, and if there is a new Middle East it will not be created with cluster bombs. A new Middle East is in the process of being created now, with the people in the streets taking back their usurped rights from the despots, be they dictators or absolute kings.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Horn of Africa

The Arab World’s Second Somalia, or is it Sudan?………

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The Arab World has one completely failed state: Somalia, which is not even identifiable as a state anymore (or Arab for that matter). It has one nearly failed states: Sudan which has staved off Somalization by giving the Southerners their freedom (unlike Abraham Lincoln). Then there is Yemen. As for Yemen? I believe it will become an unidentifiable state, like Somalia, possibly with the South regaining the independence it foolishly gave away in 1990 to join the tribal North. Northern Yemen is truly in danger of falling completely apart, American drones and Saudi war planes notwithstanding.

No, Libya is not likely to become a failed state. It may try to become a failed state during the next few years, many African states that were ruled by long-term despots have headed that way. But Libya is a potentially rich country with a relatively high degree of national identity. Besides, it is too close to Europe to be allowed to fail as a state: who is going to stop all them boats?
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Corruption, ethnic cleansing, GCC, Human Right, Mercenaries

The Orwellian Glory of Bahrain? Khalifa and Winston Smith and O’Brien……………….

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                                           Glory of the nation? 
“Even amid the crackdown, officials insist that Bahrain remains a democratic country adhering to, in the words of Abdulla al-Buainain, a judge, the “rule of law.” (E-mails to the government information office and a public relations firm hired by Bahrain went unanswered.) But the frustration of Mr. Alderazi is evident across the kingdom. The most despised government figure for Shiites, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the king’s 75-year-old uncle and the world’s longest-serving prime minister with four decades in office, has become the center of an attempt at a personality cult; his portraits adorn intersections. “Glory of the nation,” one describes him……… Most dangerous, though, is the exacerbation of sectarian hatred in a country that has never really reconciled the narratives of the Khalifa family’s long-ago conquest. No one claims that Sunnis and Shiites ever lived in harmony here. But the country stands as a singular example of the way venerable distinctions of ethnicity, sect and history can be manipulated in the Arab world, often cynically, in the pursuit of power. Programs on state-owned television like “The Observer” and “The Last Word” baited activists as traitors and encouraged citizens to inform on one another. ………………”

This over-ripe Shaikh Khalifa Bin Salman Al Khalifa has created a bipolar society on the island of Bahrain. For many years outsiders, especially Westerners, saw only what they were ‘directed’ to see. Or they saw what they wanted to see. They saw one Bahrain: cosmopolitan, open to foreign business, pro-Western, rulers and their elite retainers speak English, yadda, yadda, yadda….
They did not see “most” of Bahrain. The Apartheid system that kept a majority of the people oppressed. They did not see the kleptocracy that stripped the land the wealth of the small country. They did not see the imported foreign mercenaries from places like Pakistan and Jordan and Syria who helped repress and torture for a fee. Many preferred not to see, especially the British expatriates many of who openly sided with the despots this year, for a price.
I recall some Europeans get nearly teary eyed talking about the last Shaikh of Bahrain (before the son promoted himself to king), how he allowed Westerners free access to the beautiful beach at one of his palaces. Only Westerners, they emphasized: no Asians, no Arabs, no Bahrainis, not even Saudis! I recall that one German, only one European some years ago, who muttered that “you should go outside Manama and see the squalid Shi’a villages”.
Now they have created an Orwellian nation of native informers, just to help the foreign mercenaries keep things under control.
Cheers
mhg


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