Culture, Weapons deals, Wild West

Mayberry Militarized: Fallujah and Kandahar Come to the American Heartland……..

      

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“Pentagon data, reports the New York Times reveals the scale of military equipment turnover. Under the Obama administration, 432 MRAPs, 533 planes and helicopters, nearly 100,000 machine guns, and nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines have gone to police departments. That flow of military equipment to local police departments might have made more sense when the program was created in the 1990s. Violent crime, particularly in cities, peaked in that decade, sparking fears about our degenerating urban areas. But then, for reasons sociologists will debate over and over, violent crime has fallen drastically to the lowest rates we’ve seen in decades. And now, we find also ourselves with a surplus of war equipment. The militarization of police departments is also changing the role of local police……………..”


Helicopters, MRAPs, Drones, Machine guns invade small town America. Does Mayberry need Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles now? Mayberry as militarized as Fallujah or Kandahar. What would Aunt Bee think (but not necessarily say) if she were alive? What would Andy Griffith say if he were alive? What does Opie think now?

Hell, what would Matt Dillon and Wyatt Earp say? No doubt TWF was not cool in their days, not in Dodge City nor in Tombstone, if it was available (it was not). So, I shall say it on their behalf: WTF?……

Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Revolutions, Syria

A New Reset for the Syrian Opposition? the True Number of Bashar Al Assad Days……….

      

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There were reports in some Arab media this past weekend that Ahmed Al Jarba will be replaced as head of the Syrian National Coalition, or whatever its latest name is now. A new leaders, the, what, sixth or seventh, in three years? That may call for a change of name as well: throw the jumbled separate words inside a bucket, shake it good, and start pulling out the new name of the opposition……. 

But can they run out of eligible Syrian names to lead it? At this rate of change, the laws of probability, the odds, are bound to bring the circle back to, yes, Bashar Al Assad. Once they run out of eligible candidates among the exiles and AWOL Syrian officers. Someday, maybe in a few years, we will read the headline that the Syrian National Coalition (or whatever its name is by then) has selected Bashar Al Assad as its new leader. Then Al Assad will give press conferences and deliver speeches in Istanbul and Riyadh promising to soon liberate Damascus from Bashar Al Assad and his allies. He may even visit Washington and Paris and meet with Senator John McCain and Bernard-Henri Levy and the Iranian Mujahideen Khalq as they declare that “the days of Bashar Al Assad are numbered“.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Elections, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Syria

Impartial Foreign Monitors of Syrian and Egyptian Elections Are Happy with Great Big Zeros…….

      

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Syrian media reported that an ecstatic Bashar Al Assad met with an uncharacteristically cheerful Iranian parliamentary delegation that had monitored the Syrian election. The Iranians insisted they did not care who won as long as the election went smoothly and everybody from Al Raqqah through, er, Beirut got to vote. They declared themselves satisfied with the election process. They claimed the elections were as free and fair as they had wished them to be, and the results (Assad won with 88%) were fantastic. “Could not be better”, said one bearded Iranian who insisted they were in Damascus as just impartial observers “to keep the honest, honest”.………


Egyptian media is quoted by my Cairo source claiming that General Al Sisi met with a gaggle of Gulf princes and potentates who had monitored the Egyptian election from the GCC democracy-monitoring headquarters in Riyadh. They declared the voting to have been free, fair, and very democratic, “almost as good as anything we have never seen back home”. One worthy grumbled that it was actually too democratic “if you ask me“, even if not tribal enough. When asked about the results (Sisi won with 97%), they said it was obviously fantastic and ordained by Allah and “why haggle over a lousy 3% discrepancy?”………
One smirking shaikh added his own version of a Parthian parting shot: “unlike that Great Big Zero election held in Syria“…….


Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Counterrevoltion, Egypt, Human Right

The Sad Grim Future of Khaled Said……


      

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Young opponents of the old Mubarak regime in Egypt used (and some still use) the motto: “We are all Khaled Said” online. That was to commemorate a young activist who was beaten to death by old regime security agents in Alexandria in 2010. 

  • Now the old regime security is the new regime security, the old goons are the new goons. 
  • Just as the new regime bureaucrats are the old regime bureaucrats, just as the old regime courts are the new regime courts. 
  • Come to think of it: the new regime is the old regime. 
  • The one difference may be that the new regime probably has collected more political prisoners than the old regime, and in a much shorter time. And it is killing off more opponents than the old regime did, either on the streets or through kangaroo courts passing mass death sentences.
  • Just this weekend another Egyptian kangaroo court sentenced ten more young people to hanging, adding them to the more than a thousand others already on death raw for political reasons.
  • Also this weekend an Egyptian appeals court freed a police officer who was charged with killing 37 political detainees.
  • So, you know where all this is heading in the coming months and years.



Expect many more Khaled Saids in the future of Egypt. Some of them will no doubt be called ‘terrorists’, but in many cases that will not be true. They will simply be new versions of the Khaled Said who was beaten to death months before the Tahrir Uprising. But they will be facing the same old enemy that he faced in 2010……..

Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Revolutions, Media, Syria

So, Which Foreigners Did You say Are Interfering in Syria?………


      


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“More recently, however, the mainstream rebels’ allies—chiefly the United States, Britain, France, Qatar and Saudi Arabia—have begun to expand their efforts to help those they consider worthy of support. They have been chuffed by the rebels’ war on ISIS. And they are co-ordinating efforts to help them better. An increasing number of vetted fighters in both the north and south of Syria have been trained in Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, given money to pay salaries, and supplied with anti-tank weapons, albeit so far in limited quantities. Meanwhile, Gulf donors are said to have cut off funds to some of the more zealous Islamist groups, including the Islamist Front, a coalition dominated by Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist outfit…………..”

The Economist has been hawkish on Syria, but only on Syria of all the Arab uprisings. It has been pissed (to put it succinctly) by Obama’s reluctance to attack Syria for the past three years. It, like other Western and Arab media and their officials, has been critical of ‘foreign’ intervention in Syria. Not all foreign intervention in frowned upon: only Russian and Iranian and Lebanese intervention. Other sources of intervention: European, Turkish, American, Gulf GCC, Saudi, Qatari, Jordanian, and Al Qaeda intervention on the side of the Jihadists is apparently kosher and halal and seeks democracy and freedom and human rights in Syria. That has been obvious from past experience when the Jihadis took over towns and neighborhoods and immediately started to apply democracy, freedom, the chopping of heads, the kidnapping of nuns and priests, among other blessings of what the rest of Syrians can expect.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Counterrevoltion, Bahrain, China

Bahrain Prime Minister Meets another Dong in Manama……


      


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“Following HRH Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa’s achievement as the winner of The International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW International) President’s Gold Award, a group of prominent BPW International Goodwill Ambassadors and representatives have journeyed to Bahrain to personally present HRH the Prime Minister with his award. This group includes three of the four jurors of the Nomination Committee: Annette Lu Hsiu-lien, former Vice-President of Taiwan, Dr. Dong-Sung Cho……………”

But the prime minister is a guy not a woman, as far as we know, so how can he win a Professional Women Gold Award? Can’t they just give him a Professional Men Gold Award?

As far as I am concerned, that makes two Dongs meeting in Manama………… 


Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Elections, Egypt, Europe, Syria

Tale of Two Funny Elections: European Union Congratulates Al Sisi but not Al Assad……..


      


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“Declaration on behalf of the European Union
on the presidential elections in Egypt
The holding of the presidential elections marks an important step in the imp
lementation of
the constitutional roadmap towards the transition to democracy in Egypt. The Europe
an
Union expresses its willingness to work closely with the new authorities in Eg
ypt in a
constructive partnership with a view to strengthening our bilateral r
elations.
The EU congratulates Abdel Fattah El-Sissi, as the new President of Egypt
, and trusts that
he will tackle the serious challenges faced by the country and the new governm
ent, among
them the dire economic situation, the deep divisions within society, the security sit
uation,
and the respect of the human rights of all Egyptian citizens in line with inter
national
obligations and guaranteed by the new Constitution adopted last January.
On the basis of the preliminary statement of the EU Election Observat
ion Mission the EU
takes good note of the overall peaceful and orderly conduct of the elections……………….”
Yadda, yadda, yadda in European bureaucratese.

The EU congratulated Generalissimo Field Marshal Al Sisi for winning his rigged Egyptian election with 97% of the vote. Effectively they congratulated him for overthrowing the elected president of Egypt, Morsi and taking over the state. They did not congratulate Bashar Al Assad for winning the other funny Arab election, the Syrian election. Perhaps because Bashar won only 88% of the vote and did not reach the required Arab majority of 90%. 
History, War

Power and Glory: from D-Day to another Qadisiyya………

      

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For the United States no war in modern history has been as necessary as WWII. No battle was as necessary as the reverse Norman conquest, the storming of the beaches of Normandie:

  • The USA and Britain had a day of glory and sacrifice, also a day of basically taking care of a necessary grim business on D-Day in the 20th century………
  • Before that the Russians (Soviets) had their own days of glory in Stalingrad (and Leningrad, and a few other places)………
  • So what, big deal. In the same century the Arabs had their own glorious battle in the Qadisiyyat Saddam قادسية صدّام and its continuing aftermath…….
  • I forgot the Ghazwat New York and all the little ghazwas of blowing up civilians in Iraq and Pakistan and Syria and other places……….
  • Then there is the very common Ghazwa of Tear Gas and the even more common Ghazwa of Political Prisons. These battles are well known in the Arab world, from Bahrain through Riyadh to Cairo and other places.

Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Elections, Egypt, GCC, Saudi Arabia

The Pope and Synods of GCC: Punking Al Sisi, Excommunicating Qatar……..

      

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“Saudi Arabia had long seen Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood as a threat. After his ouster, it quickly pledged $5 billion (3.7 billion euros) in aid to Cairo, with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates offering a combined $7 billion. King Abdullah also urged “brothers and friends to avoid meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs,” warning that harming Egypt would amount to “harming Islam, Arabism and Saudi Arabia.” The king appeared to be referring to Qatar, the only Gulf country to back Morsi, and whose relations with Saudi Arabia and most of its other neighbours in the region have been strained………….”

Saudi palace bureaucrats, with the help of the vastest and most expensive media oil money can buy, are trying to recreate the image of their king Abdullah. Even as the king is basking in the diversions of Morocco. (FYI: senior Saudi princes like to spend R&R in Morocco, it is a beautiful and relaxed country in which they often die).
The palace minions and the vast controlled media have been trying to show their king as some kind of Wahhabi Pope, but nobody outside the Persian Gulf states is buying it. Actually very few outside Saudi Arabia are buying it, with the exception of Bahrain’s ruling family and some tribal Wahhabi liberals in one other Gulf GCC state (Hint: it is not Oman or Qatar or the UAE). As for the wider Arab world, nobody is buying it except for the Salafis whom I correctly consider to be a fifth column for the princes.

This week, the Saudi king, or maybe rather his palace minions, surprised General Al Sisi after his election victory (he got 97% of those who bothered to vote) by sending him a public congratulatory message that is also a combination road map and twenty-five year plan for Egypt. Basically telling him to keep  good thing going. It was a backhanded congratulatory message: basically the old king, or his minions, told Al Sisi and the Egyptians what to do. In other words, the oil potentate effectively punked Generalissimo Field Marshal President Al Sisi. Talk about interference in the internal affairs of another sovereign country.
The princes are also trying to pressure the
Qatari potentates into surrendering by abandoning their support for the
Muslim Brotherhood. Failing that, the King’s message also threatens to ‘excommunicate’ and expel Qatar from the GCC synods.


On the brighter side, the king called for a conference of all donor states to Egypt, presumably to drown the country with oil money, provided it continues to toe the Saudi line. As a down payment, 20 thousands heads of cattle arrived in Alexandria, with 80 thousand more to follow, gifts from the UAE rulers. The sheep and cows did not originate in the United Arab Emirates, but like almost everyone else in that country they were imported from elsewhere.
Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Elections, Arab Politics, Egypt, GCC, UAE

The GCC Livestock Exchange: Cattle from the UAE, Votes from Egypt………

      

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Egyptian media report that 20 thousand heads of cattle have arrived by ship at the port of Alexandria. They are the first payment of a 100 thousand head of cattle grant from the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to Egypt.
The political heads of cattle arrived suspiciously just after Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi was declared the winner of the election by 97% of the vote. But the timing could be a coincidence, or maybe not. Yet, in the brotherly and sisterly world of official inter-Arab relations, a free lunch is an illusion. After all, the potentates and princes did not give a fig about the Egyptian people when Morsi was president.
On the other hands millions of heads of cattle voters voted for Al Sisi in the election, which gave him a modest 97% of the vote. That is modest by the standards of Yemen, where president general Hadi Al Zombie won by 99.8% a couple of years ago (and it is not true that only GCC rulers and Saudi princes voted in his election). In comparison, it is expected that Bashar Al Assad will win the Syrian election by a relatively modest margin, as he is unlikely to win more than 85% (my prediction).
The Saudi king woke up from his sleep long enough to announce that the election of Sisi heralds a new Arab awakening (he was in a rare mood to flaunt fancy words). Overall the Egyptian deal is not so bad for the potentates: 100 thousand heads of cattle in exchange for millions of heads of…………..

Cheers
mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com

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