“France has taken the first steps toward proposing a Security Council resolution that would refer Syria to the International Criminal Court for the prosecution of war crimes, diplomats said Friday, an action long sought by rights advocates. Although Russia might well veto such a resolution, the diplomats said, it could still embarrass the Kremlin, the Syrian government’s most important foreign supporter, at a time when the Russians already face isolation over the crisis in Ukraine. The diplomats also cautioned that such a resolution risked alienating the Russians, whose cooperation in pressuring the Syrian government is considered vital. The diplomats spoke on the condition of anonymity because a draft of the resolution is still under negotiation……………”

It doesn’t matter. It will not pass, and everybody knows it. But the French socialists are moving in the direction they have promised in their Saudi deal. They will have made their point to their Al Saud partners and bankrollers. That was the recent deal between the French ‘socialists’ and the repressive absolute princes: money and trade in exchange for a more robust French stance on Syria and Lebanon and the Persian Gulf. Politically robust, not militarily robust.

For the latter, for military robustness, they need to talk Obama into starting another war, since the Europeans are not willing to spend their own blood and treasure in Middle East wars. They are smarter than the US Congress (both houses, both parties): the Europeans know they need the money to build and maintain their infrastructure. So, let the Americans do it all: they have been doing it since 1942.

American politicians have let the infrastructure at home age and go unrepaired while loading up on weapons and deployment across the globe. Bad roads, old modes of transportation, and risky bridges and schools and other buildings become more costly with time, and harder to repair. They also pause a greater future danger to the American home front than any bunch of Wahhabi Jihadists.

Cheers
mhg

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Hassan Nasrallah of Lebanese Hezbollah (to distinguish it from all the alleged Hezbollahs of Texas, Bahrain, Egypt, Finland, and others) is one Arab leader who shows supreme confidence in what he says. Possibly the only one: it comes from both his enunciation and his body language. He makes almost all other Arab leaders look like sweaty-palmed snake-oil salesmen (most of them are). That is undeniable, whatever you think of his ‘politics’. I have opined in the past that the Israeli Mossad probably regrets having assassinated the Hezbollah leader who preceded him, thus allowing him to move up the leadership ladder.

What he says now in an interview in the daily As-Safir is that: (1) the danger of Salafi terrorist bombings in Lebanon has abated because of ‘certain measures’ along the border in both Lebanon and Syria. Meaning that the continued Jihadist defeats in the southern front of the Syrian war have reduced the flow and the risks; (2) more important, he assures his audience that the “danger” of the Syrian regime falling has ended. He also added that the danger of a division of Syria has also been “overcome”.

He has also opined that both Northern and Southern fronts in Syria are improving. But he added what most people now expect: that the Russian position of support for the Syrian regime will solidify in the coming weeks. Probably a reference to the post-Ukraine relations with the West.

Essentially he is claiming that the Syrian civil war has been won by one side, the side he supports. All this is no doubt based on the outcome of the battles of the past twelve years. Yet predicting the outcome of a civil war is risky: this may come back to bite Nasrallah. Civil wars have a way of seesawing and surprising: remember when almost everybody claimed that the days of Bashar Al Assad were numbered? That was three years ago.

Cheers
mhg

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“Gambia’s president Yahya Jammeh has said he will soon discontinue the use of English as his country’s official language, describing it as “colonial legacy”. The plan appears to be to make a local language the country’s official one, but reports have also emerged suggesting Arabic will replace English. Speaking at the swearing-in ceremony of the country’s newly appointed Chief Justice, Jammeh — known for his anti-western rhetoric and policies — said for the next “one billion years”, the British have “no moral platform to talk about human rights anywhere in the world”. Gambia gained its independence from the UK 49 year ago, and the president stated that the only British remnant is the English language……………..”

“A former Gambian Chief Justice who was sacked by President Yahya Jammeh for allegedly taking orders from an embassy of a ‘hostile’ country has gone into hiding. Mrs Mable Ayemang, fled her government allocated abode in Fajara hours after her services with the Government of President Yahya were terminated on 4th February 2014. The Ghanaian born judge who was appointed to the top job in July 2013 has not been seen in public and is unable to hand over matters of the judiciary to her successor…………..”

This is a throwback to the 1960s. When some African absolute leader screwed up real good, he would blast the former colonial masters. Some of the ‘blasting’ was well-deserved, as in the case of Lumumba and the Congo, and many others. Europeans, especially outside the British Empire, did little to get their captive peoples ready for independence. Some of it was just scapegoating the old European imperial goats. Often it was a combination of both. But that is an old argument of another era.
I remember Gambia mainly as the ancestral home of Kunta Kinte and Alex Haley. Yahya ought to apply to the Arab League of Dunces, they would welcome him. Better yet, he should be told that the Saudi king has been looking for new members of the Gulf GCC, new blood, fresh meat, so to speak. The old king teased humorless Jordan and faraway Morocco for three years before finally breaking it off, old teaser that he is.

The newest claim of WMD use was headlined last week in Alarabiya.net, the semi-official Saudi network. Alarabiya has been the favorite network to pass on opposition Jihadi claims of Syrian regime use of WMD. Which is one reason I usually immediately suspected every and each claim. The latest claim was apparently taken down, or maybe just pushed into the back ‘pages’ soon after:

“A training barracks used by Roman gladiators and the 2,000-year-old mausoleum of the Emperor Augustus could be restored with money from the Saudi royal family, in the latest effort by Italy to secure funding for its crumbling cultural heritage. In a deal brokered by Ignazio Marino, the mayor of Rome, the Saudi royals are to provide millions of euros to pay for the restoration of some of the capital’s neglected monuments. The government in Riyadh has been presented with a dossier of nine historic sites to choose from, with greatest interest said to be in the Emperor Augustus’s mausoleum, a giant, circular structure near the Tiber River that has been virtually abandoned for decades……………” 

Destroyers of Islamic Heritage, Looters of Mecca

Holy Greed: Paris Hilton Does Mecca, Takes Over Prophet Mohammed’s Childhood Home

Saudi Culture: Bulldozing the Graves of Mohammed and Omar into Las Vegas

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Came back from a biking trip to BC (the other one, the BC del Norte) in which I almost broke my nose, again. Almost.
On the way back south we stopped at a place near Mt. Vernon (in WA, PNW, not “the one” in Virginia). Oddly it is not too far from Arlington (WA, PNW, not Virginia). The place has the irresistible name of Calico Cafe. Its full name is even more irresistible: Calico Cupboard Old Town Cafe & Bakery.

Someone had told me that colleagues and acquaintances go there for a romantic time. I dunno: an interesting place with truly delicious pastry verging on being evil. But a romantic bakery? Only if you believe that the way to anyone’s heart is through their artery via their stomach. At the cafe, I could not resist mentioning in passing that as far as romance is concerned it is equivalent to the Sheep and Goat Market back home on the (Persian) Gulf. I said it in Arabic (سوق الغنم), which I then had to translate to incredulous listeners. Someone snorted: “Romance in a Sheep and Goat Market?“; I snorted back: “Romance at the Calico Cupboard Old Town Cafe & Bakery?” I have to admit: the latter sounds much more likely, and it is. After all: the almond croissant and the bread pudding are absolutely satanic. The latter beats Um Ali.

Besides, the Calico characters don’t look to have come straight out of the Central Casting choice for Indiana Jones. Maybe some other film series.

Cheers

mhg

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“ZE’EV ELKIN, Israel’s 43-year-old deputy foreign minister, who emigrated from eastern Ukraine in 1990, chuckles about the rise of “Russians” into his country’s highest posts. The foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, hails from Moldova, once part of the Soviet Union. “Recently the ministers of tourism, absorption, diaspora affairs, the head of the Jewish agency—they’ve all been Russians,” jokes Mr Elkin. Most Russian-Israelis, he notes approvingly, are “right-wing”, meaning that they are hawks on Palestine. Mr Elkin openly opposes—under any circumstance, he breezily asserts—the stated desire of his prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, for a Palestinian state to co-exist alongside Israel, something John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, is failing to achieve after nearly eight months of frenetic diplomacy. A Palestinian one, however hedged about, would, says Mr Elkin, “threaten the existence of a Jewish state.” Better, he adds, to annex a chunk of the West Bank……………”

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“Turkey is not alone in supporting jihadis in the battles in Latakia’s northern countryside. Recent information revealed the existence of an airbridge between Jordan and Turkey, transporting jihadis after they are trained on Jordan soil. Syria’s southern battlefront front has been moved to the north. Al-Akhbar received information suggesting an active and growing Jordanian role in the fight for Kasab and its surrounding territory. The information referred to an airbridge carrying hundreds of fighters from Marka airport in Amman to Antakya in the Iskenderun province in Turkey. According to a Syrian opposition source, more than a thousand jihadis were transported in the past three days and they immediately joined the fierce battles in Latakia’s northern countryside. The information “was confirmed by accurate Jordanian sources,” the Syrian opposition source maintained. The jihadis belong to various nationalities……………”

The Turkish ruling party had thought they would get a foothold in Syria. They have had an open policy for Syria: they have allowed weapons, fighters, and Salafi terrorists to freely cross their border to join the war in Syria. What they have got instead is that their borders are very insecure, and their minorities are becoming more restless and bolder in demanding their rights. The Turkish people are divided over the Syrian intervention. Think Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s, when they allowed the Wahhabi Mujahideen to enter Afghanistan to fight the leftist regime and the Soviets. The West and Pakistan and the Middle East are still paying the price of that folly.

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“Here in the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who gained infamy for his bloody reign as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq during the early years of the American occupation there, the increasingly sectarian war in Syria has ignited militants, inspiring the largest jihadist mobilization the city has ever seen. Jordanian analysts and Islamists estimate that 800 to 1,200 Jordanians have gone to fight in Syria, more than double the number who fought in Afghanistan or Iraq. Though the fighters come from across the country, fully one-third hail from here, the most from any single area. Most fighters disappear without telling their families, only to resurface across the border with the Nusra Front, Syria’s Qaeda affiliate, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a Qaeda splinter group. …………..”

Yes I recall Al Zarqawi and his brief reign of terrorism in Iraq. He and his imported foreign Arab Salafis. He was a proud son of some typical humorless hole of a town in Jordan, as long as he was busy killing and beheading the ‘right’ people in Iraq. But then the Salafi terrorists got too ambitious, and struck inside Jordan. When they attacked a hotel in Amman and created many victims of the ‘wrong’ kind, it suddenly dawned that he was a terrorist. All this hobnobbing with Jihadis will come back to bite the King of Jordan right where it counts, just as it is now biting the current rulers of Turkey.

Cheers

mhg

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“The Bahraini Arabic language newspaper al-Wasat reported on Wednesday Apr. 9 that a Cairo court began to consider a case brought by an Egyptian lawyer against Qatar accusing it of being soft on terrorism. The “terrorism” charge is of course a euphemism for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have designated a “terrorist” organisation and are vowed to dismantle. The two new partners and the UAE also loathe Qatar for hosting and funding Al-Jazeera satellite TV. The continued incarceration of the Al-Jazeera journalists and dozens of other journalists on trumped up charges is no coincidence. The court case is symptomatic of the current Saudi-Egyptian relationship in their counter-revolution against the 2011 pro-democracy upheavals………….The pro-autocracy partnership between the Egyptian military junta and the Saudi ruling family goes beyond their opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood and the perceived threat of terrorism. It emanates from the autocrats’ visceral opposition to democracy and human rights, including minority and women’s rights.…………… According to media and Human Rights Watch reports, at least 15,000 secular and Islamist activists are currently being held in Egyptian prisons, without having been charged or convicted…………….”

Egypt is rapidly going back to pre-2011. Soon it will be more Mubarakist than it was even under Mubarak: at least they could joke about Mubarak in private. Generalisimo Al Sisi is not president yet, he is not even a minister anymore, he is allegedly just a private citizen candidate. But mocking him can land you in prison. Now they are going back to the absurd court cases brought by lawyers with political leanings against citizens and against foreign countries they disagree with. Even the country’s institutions are back to the old habit of bending backward, or maybe bending forward, to accommodate the Arab potentates across the Red Sea. Will anybody dare bring a lawsuit against the military for overthrowing an elected government and for killing unarmed civilians? Will anybody sue the foreign princes for arresting Egyptian citizens on trumped-up charges and not bringing them to trial? Will any of the feloul courts hear such cases? Maybe on a day when pigs start flying over Egypt.

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