Tag Archives: China

Arabian Peninsula, China, Humor, Iran, Iraq, Middle East

Middle East Roundup: From China to Iran, Iraq, West Bank Exile, and Suggestive Saudi Potato Chips…….

September 10, 2018 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Round-up of recent Middle East news and some comments:

In Iraq, it looks like Muqtada Al Sadr has abandoned his near-alliance with caretaker PM Haidar Al Abadi. He has now called for Abadi to resign.
My comment? If it holds up, that will seal the fate of the incompetent PM. Alliance with Muqtada was Abadi’s only route to remaining in power, after he threw his Iranian and PMU allies under the bus to appease Donald Trump.

Israeli and other media report Israel has banned teenage Palestinian protester Ahed al-Tamimi of the Occupied West Bank from traveling abroad.
My comment? That’s freedom for you, in the “only democracy” in the Middle East. But it’s done all over the Middle East, banning travel of dissidents From Tehran to Riyadh to Cairo and Algeria and beyond. It is a form of internal exile, to be locked up within the borders. Probably better than a prison or a dungeon. Unless you can escape into external exile before it is too late.

Saw an article in Foreign Policy to the effect that: China’s Continent-Spanning Trains Are Running Half-Empty. Beijing’s funding dozens of new rail routes as part of its global ambitions — and losing money on every one. So what’s the long game?
My comment? That is China. Meanwhile, back in the USA, Mr. Trump’s Infrastructure non-plan is still just hot air, unexplained and likely misunderstood by Trump, opposed by a small-minded miserly short-sighted Congress.

Reports that the US administration has warned Syria not to attack the Jihadists holed up in Idlib. Some US sources even claimed the Syrian regime is preparing to use chemical weapons against the rebels in the region. Idlib is the last major outpost of the Al Qaeda-led Salafist terrorists in Syria.
My comment? Who would have thunk it! That a day would come when the USA (Trump Admin) is allied to an Al Qaeda Salafist branch in Syria.
September 11, 2001 forgotten, buried in Wahhabi oil money. And how do they know the Syrian regime will use WMD? Did the Jihadis tell them, directly or through Israeli or Arab sources?

A piece sponsored by the Atlantic Council suggested that “Iran and the US Should Use the UN to Reopen a Channel for Dialogue”.
My comment? To start with: Trump has just reneged on the UN-adopted JCPOA Nuclear Deal. As a rule, US Iran policy (and Middle East policy) should be formulated in the United States, in Washington DC, as it was in the past, not in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem (or Las Vegas or Evangelical-LalaLand). And it should not be based on the whims and purchasing power of a few Persian Gulf absolute princes and potentates with money to burn.

The Washington Post reports from the Democratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that a man was detained in Saudi Arabia for eating potato chips with a woman — and then posting the video.
My comment? Sharing a bag of potato chips with a woman in Saudi Arabia can be very suggestive. Especially if her whole face is completely covered with a burqa/niqab, which makes it even more suggestive, even if nobody can tell who she/he/it is.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

China, CIA, Iran, Korea

Warm and Fuzzy from Korea or Iran? Allen Dulles and the Panda Go Go Dancer…….

January 13, 2018 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Tweet to https://twitter.com/

“In the late 1950s, US relations with Communist China were virtually nonexistent. Trade had been tightly controlled since China’s intervention in North Korea in 1950, and, to deny Beijing any advantage from commercial or financial transactions, the Secretary of the Treasury issued strict regulations prohibiting the import of goods that originated in or had passed through Communist China. There were rarely any exceptions, even for pandas. In 1958, one frustrated animal importer tried a different tactic. He took his case to the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), Allen Dulles……….”

Chi Chi was apparently a somewhat naughty Panda, just like that other Chi Chi. Yes, once there was a “Chi Chi the Go Go Dancer“, actually there were probably several of them. Including one in the wilder days of San Francisco, when Herb Caen and the Go Go people reigned.
But she/they didn’t come from China and no doubt wasn’t Allen (or John Foster) Dulles’ type. But given the alleged history of the current CinC of the country, anything is possible again, even in the era of Pompeo the Dour…..

(We can always think of something cute and warm and fuzzy that comes from North Korea or Iran. But what can that be?)

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Donald Trump, Iran, JCPOA, Korea, Muslim Wars, North Korea

Bully Trapped? Trump Fears China and Pyongyang, Focuses Attacks on Iran, Mexico and Canada…..

April 26, 2017 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Tweet to https://twitter.com/

So Donald Trump is scared witless of little Kim Jong Un. The Cute Leader of Pyongyang is saber-rattling, begging for attention, knowing he’s got Donald by the little balls (his artillery is focused on Seoul). Trump seems paralyzed by the events on the Korean Peninsula. The chubby dictator apparently means business, won’t be bullied by the bully of Pennsylvania Avenue. What to do?
Simple, exit stage left, threaten faraway Iran (which is abiding by its treaties especially JPCOA nuclear deal even though the US is not, not really). So, if Pyongyang continues its nuclear advance, Trump will provoke a war with Iran, with full approval of the Democrat chickens in Congress. Then escalate the genocidal Arab onslaught against poor Yemen. Maybe hint at firing another few futile Tomahawks on some empty Syrian military base after more phony complaints of WMD use by Jihadi proxies of Arab kings and princes (that should get CNN pundits and fearful Democrats cheering, it did last time).
Nothing as satisfying to a New York brawler as a few cheap shots below the belt. But I do wish they would start wars with someone else: every time they get in trouble they think of waging another Muslim war. Bomb someone else this time: bomb Asia, Europe, Australia, Mars, Uranus (Donald). Just leave the Middle East alone, will you?

Trump is unhappy about the trade situation (including allegations of currency exchange rate manipulation) with China. During the campaign he sounded tough, promised to reshuffle the trade ties. Now he seems scared witless of China (not the least the impact on potential family business interests). So? He spins and attacks Mexico and Canada. More cheap shots below the belt.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Revolutions, China, Donald Trump, ISIS, Jihadis, MENA, Middle East, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy

Will America Join the Jihad in Syria? How Do They Line Up in Eastern Mediterranean……..

April 10, 2017 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson demands that Russia drop its support of Assad in Syria. Sure: Putin, current heir to the rough and tough Soviet and Romanov empires, is almost certain to listen to the Texas oilman and his TV celebrity boss.

Nikki Haley seconds the Tillerson motion and threatens to take the names of anyone opposing it and add it to her famous list of names. And to cut their weekly allowances.

China‘s Xi, a guest of Trump at Mar-A-Lago, grins and remains “inscrutable”, as he is supposed to remain as leader of PRC (Chi-Com to the American Right). But he knows the futile game Trump is playing with him. Too transparent. No doubt, Trump was trying to unnerve Xi by attacking Syria during his visit. The problem with that is that Chi-Com leaders don’t get unnerved easily by television or real estate celebrities. Haven’t done it since the days of Chairman Mao and his Little Red Book. They can smell the bull from far away, they have done their fair share of spreading it.

Russia‘s Lavrov will ask that Trump drop his unwitting (or is that witless) support of Al Qaeda and other Jihadi cutthroats in Syria, including those in Idlib. The latter probably owned the same cache of chemical weapons that were bombed by the Syrian regime last week.

American mainstream media, often copying the media of Arab royal regimes that are as repressive as Assad, are gung-ho on avenging the Alamo, or the Maine. They have been since 2011.

Turkey wants Trump to help install a nice clean-cut Muslim Brotherhood regime in Damascus like the one in Turkey, and as humorless. It would be more repressive, given that it will include former Baathist renegades as well as current fundamentalists with Wahhabi ties.
Saudis want Trump to install a Wahhabi-esque regime in Damascus. Or, barring that, any regime that is hostile to the Iranians and Iraqis and not secular like the Baathists. They promise to shower the “right” regime in Damascus with many billions that they will not have.
UAE rulers don’t seem to care that much, as long as they get to have a naval base somewhere in Syria to protect their “national interests”, whatever the hell that be. In the Mediterranean of course.

The Bahrainis have no money to give to anyone outside the ruling family and their minions. So they will offer to receive the new Trump-anointed Caliph of Syria in their well-policed capital. On the assumption that this would legitimize both their regimes. Yes, they are clueless.
Iranians and Lebanese make the “right” noises, essentially they make the same noises in unison. But they keep on doing the voodoo that they do in Syria. So far.

Bashar Al Assad (America’s bête noire de la semaine) is a man who has had a target on his back for six years. He has been pronounced a dead-man-walking many times, mostly by Arab despots and Jihadis inside Syria and gullible believing Westerners. Yet he doesn’t seem worried about it. In fact I haven’t seen him worried since before the brief 2011 uprising that became a Jihadi insurrection that became a combination civil war and proxy war. Does he know something we don’t? Is he taking something we don’t?

An Illegal Martian in America: the Party of Russia vs the Party of China…….

December 18, 2016 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

A Martian who has just arrived in the United States (either a legal or an illegal alien) would think American politics are divided into two major parties:

The Party of Russia. We are told across much of the media to believe that the Republican Party (GOP) is the Party of Putin and Russia (with all the unpleasant accoutrements: Gulag, KGB, other extremely un-American behavior like guzzling Vodka and eating Pirozhky). Suddenly the Democrats, big losers of this election year, have developed a strange zeal for fending off a Russian quasi-Bolshevik takeover of the USA.
The Party of China (Chi-Com, PLA, Robber Oligarchs, Generals snapping up US real estate, industrial espionage, job-stealers, unfair Trade Surplus, Cyber Espionage, North Korea, etc). That would be the Democrat Party, and not only by default.

To complicate matters, many people in the Middle East, and in the wider Islamic world have a different view on this. They also have their own notion about US politics. Many, nay actually most people in the region, believe that both major American political parties are the Party of Israel. Or, more precisely, the Party of Likud right-wingers.
Cheers

M Haider Ghuloum

China, Cuba, U.S. Senate, US Foreign Policy

The GOP Senators and Free China vs. Communist Cuba……..

December 21, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday

Sunday morning saw Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on one TV network interview blasting the new Obama policy towards Cuba. One of his main objections, one of them, was that Cuba is not ‘free’ and not democratic but communist.
The senator almost certainly was watching himself on a television set made in China at the time. After that he probably made some phone calls in an American iPhone or Android phone assembled in China. He probably went home and had cold drink, kept cool in a fridge made in China. All courtesy of dividends he received from American corporations that are in partnership with the rulers and the oligarchy of China. That is democratic non-communist China………

I forgot other democratic countries the senator and others do not object to the USA having close relations with. Like Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Burma, Zimbabwe, and many others. All free and democratic……
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]

Cinema, Finance, GCC, History, New York, Waldorf Astoria

From Beijing and the Gulf to Manhattan and Paris and Rocky Mountains: Look Who is Coming………

October 6, 2014 Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Agence France-Presse and other agencies reported this morning that Hilton Hotels is selling sells the Waldorf Astoria to a Chinese firm for $1.95 bn. It took a (proverbial? cliche?) few seconds to register, but the Waldorf? I mean you can’t get any more historical American than John Jacob Astor and the mountain men and the Fur Trade. Who would have thunk only a few years ago that the venerable (that is what they call them now) Manhattan institution will be sold to a bunch of Chinese oligarchs and People’s Liberation Army functionaries.

Then only a couple of years ago reports came out of some Saudi prince buying the Le Crillon in Paris. I had stayed there once for three days, and of course I did not pay for it: it was a paid official business trip, otherwise I could not have afforded it. Then the Qataris have been buying other Paris properties even before they were admitted into the Francophone countries (about two or three Qataris probably speak French but money makes up for any deficiency).

Not to be outdone, the Emirati (UAE) potentates have been buying British sports clubs and any horses and mules and stables that are for sale across England. Come to think of it, Abu Dhabi has been buying almost anything else that is English and for sale (be it nailed or not). Even the upstart robber shaikhs of Bahrain have been known to use their ill-gotten loot to dabble in British properties.

All this is against the trend in the past couple of decades. Even the Mafia’s hold on Las Vegas gambling has faded in recent years, or so the reports say. At least since Francis Ford Coppola wisely gave up on a fourth sequel of the Corleone saga (the third one stank to Sicily and back).

Speaking of oligarchies and potentates and globalization. How come the Russians and their fabled petroleum and gas oligarchs have not been snapping up Western hotels and sports clubs and horses and department stores? Could it be that they knew ‘the sanctions’ were coming?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum