the heelers guide to the arab spring
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LIBYA: Ironically, the Gadaffi family dictatorship had been moving Libya steadily towards a more civilised posture vis a vis the rest of the world when Barack, Nicholas and David decided to lower the boom on them. Nonetheless the people's rebellion against the Gadaffis in Libya is at least in part an honorably motivated uprising of human beings hungry for a better life in partnership with the rest of humanity. And so I suppose I must accept that there are some honorable reasons for the present Western intervention to stop the Gadaffis from killing all around them. The Libyan people have never known anything other than the dictats and subjugation of a lingering Soviet era pseudo Islamic police State. Ordinary Libyans are now trying to win freedom after forty years of slavery to Colonel Gadaffy and his family. Nonetheless a word of caution is in order. Al Qaeda is waiting in the wings to hijack the revolution. And the absence of Western troops on the ground will make such a hijacking very easy for them. The intervention by President Obama and his British and French friends (about which and about whom my analysis is very sniffy) is not entirely well motivated, or thought out, or principled or professional. There is the lingering suspicion that the whole thing was driven by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy and by the teenage Brit Prime Minister David Cameron in an effort to build reputations for themselves. True they went through the motions of seeking the Arab world's permission before they intervened. But the very notion of asking permission from the Islamist dictators of the Arab League to take any action was also quite quaint. Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron have proceeded with their strategically dubious adventures in Libya while sneering quietly in superior tones about what were very necessary interventions by a genuinely principled President Bush and Prime Minister Blair in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, as I've said, the present Obama policy of bombing Gadaffi but leaving the actual fighting to ordinary Libyans actually increases the aforementioned risk that Al Qaeda (and Iran) will hijack the liberation. Nor is it clear that Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, et al (Particularly Al, I hate him) have thought through what they're going to do after liberation with the hundreds of thousands of Libyans who actually support Gadaffi looking to flee the country. I'm hoping they're not simply planning on dumping them in Ireland. The signs aren't good. Just this week a delusional Irish government Minister called Maisie Lynch, announced that Ireland would be accepting what she called "refugees" from Libya. How nice of her to volunteer my country for such a task. Finally gently travellers of the Internet, I would point out in the inimitable words of Professor Tuco of the university of The Good The Bad And The Ugly: "Anyone who bomb the Gaddaffis and leave them alive, he know notheeng about Tuco."
***
TUNISIA: Some genuinely motivated feeling among people eager for a better life. The dictatorship here was moderate compared to most other Arab dictatorships. Al Qaeda are hoping to hijack the revolution.
***
EGYPT: Egypt is the most difficult Arab country to govern. It is the nearest thing any Arab country has come to a multicultural nation State. During the rulership of army strongman Hosnsi Mubarrak who governed for the past three decades, Egypt did not sponsor terrorism or make war on anybody. Al Qaeda is optimistic about hijacking reforms here. Hosni Mubarrak should not be on trial.
***
BAHRAIN: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Al Qaeda are jointly trying to destabilise the island nation of Bahrain. The Iranians previously tried to install a government here and failed.
***
YEMEN: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Al Qaeda are sponsoring the unrest in Yemen.
***
SOMALIA: The Islamic Port Royal of piracy. Not an Arab nation ethnically. But certainly so culturally. The pirates who threaten the shipping lanes of the world live in a little town on the Somali coast. All of them. Everyone knows where they are. They could be wiped out in a few hours. But the United Nations and African Union regard direct action against the pirates as an infringement of Somali sovereignty. So it doesn't happen. Somalia is a failed State. The Americans and Brits could conquer it and give its people law and order and civilisation in less than a week. But because the United Nations and African Union continue to sneer about dangers of Western imperialism, the liberation of Somalia has not happened. The people have endured twenty years of pure Islamist psychopathy. Before that came fifty years of Soviet Russian sponsored communist psychopathy. Then as now the United Nations and the African Union did nothing to help those people.
***
SUDAN: The Christian South has voted to secede after decades of genocidal murder at the hands of the Muslim North. The Muslims are already refusing to let one oil rich province go. The United Nations is in the middle hand wringing as usual. For thirty years the UN has shown itself unwilling or unable to bring Sudan's Islamist President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir to trial for the mass murder of four million people. Mr Al Bashir for his part shows no signs in letting up on his blood letting.
***
SYRIA: Syria is the most ferocious Arab police State. Hafez Al Assad, the father of the present dictator Bashir Al Assad, is known to have shot down at least ten of thousand of his citizens twenty years ago in order to retain control. Bashir is now endeavouring to catch on up on his Daddy's kill tally. Of all the Arabs the Syrians have had to live in the most abject fear of their government. The current uprising is the most legitimate and the most genuine of all the uprisings in the Arab world. In the past ten years the Syrian government ordered and carried out the assassination of the President of Lebanon as well as executing other leading Lebanese politicians. The United Nations refused to take any action against the Assad government of Syria even though a United Nations investigator wanted to charge Bashir Al Assad and his government with murder. The net result, in spite of one moderately honorable UN investigator, is that the United Nations has done nothing. It should be noted that as a direct consequence of President George Bush's decisive liberations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Syrians pulled their occupying army out of Lebanon. Signs are that with Barack Obama in the White House the Assad government in Syria will be back in Lebanon soon. Reportage of the ongoing Syrian slaughter of Syrian dissidents is scant on CNN and Sky News, simply because Bashir doesn't allow any reporters in. Unlike in Egypt, where the more moderate and civilised leader Mubarrak did permit reporters both entry and the freedom to report, and where CNN and Sky repaid him by demonising and then helping bring down his moderate and comparatively civilised government. The irony is screaming. As are the Syrian people.
***
IRAN: Iran is not classified as an Arab State, its people being categorised as a separate ethnicity, namely Persian. But there is a citizens uprising in Iran at present and the uprising stems from a similar disenchantment, to that felt by the Arabs, with the barbarism, economic failure, and institutionalised cultural psychopathy of Islamic dictatorship. Although you'd never know it from CNN or Sky News, the Islamist government of Iran is extirpating that uprising on daily basis. The Iranian dissidents have most recently showed an awesome courage and discernment, when in spite of thirty years of anti American propaganda, they chanted in the streets "Long live America." These people deserve better than the rulership of barbaric Soviet era nut jobs. These people deserve to live and to live free.
***
PAKISTAN: Pakistan is a zoo. They're not Arabs but they are Muslims and their culture bears all the hallmarks of Islamic psychopathy. The President (husband of the late Benazir Bhutto who was murdered by Al Qaeda and its allies) is an honorable man. The Prime Minister is not. The Supreme Court is headed by Chief Justice Chowdrey whose release from detention and reinstatement as Supreme Court Judge was imposed on Pakistan by Barack Obama. Chief Justice Chowdrey is an Islamist whose speciality is releasing Al Qaeda agents from custody on legal technicalities. The Pakistani secret service is irradiated with Islamists and Al Qaeda agents. The leading Pakistani opposition party leaders Nahwaz Sharif and Imram Khan are the Islamists in parliament who had the most to gain from Benazir's murder, ie they could never in their wildest dreams have beaten her in an election. Pakistan possesses atomic weapons and expertise. There is a high likelihood that Pakistan will facilitate Al Qaeda and/or its Islamist allies in procuring nuclear bombs and the capacity to make their own. The only hope for Pakistan and for those of us who monitor Pakistan, is that a clear majority of the people wanted to be governed by Benazir Bhutto rather than by the Islamist scruff they tend to be saddled with. If the Pakistanis really supported Al Qaeda en masse, there would be no need for Al Qaeda to murder so many of them on a daily basis. So, yes, there is hope.
***
LIBYA: Ironically, the Gadaffi family dictatorship had been moving Libya steadily towards a more civilised posture vis a vis the rest of the world when Barack, Nicholas and David decided to lower the boom on them. Nonetheless the people's rebellion against the Gadaffis in Libya is at least in part an honorably motivated uprising of human beings hungry for a better life in partnership with the rest of humanity. And so I suppose I must accept that there are some honorable reasons for the present Western intervention to stop the Gadaffis from killing all around them. The Libyan people have never known anything other than the dictats and subjugation of a lingering Soviet era pseudo Islamic police State. Ordinary Libyans are now trying to win freedom after forty years of slavery to Colonel Gadaffy and his family. Nonetheless a word of caution is in order. Al Qaeda is waiting in the wings to hijack the revolution. And the absence of Western troops on the ground will make such a hijacking very easy for them. The intervention by President Obama and his British and French friends (about which and about whom my analysis is very sniffy) is not entirely well motivated, or thought out, or principled or professional. There is the lingering suspicion that the whole thing was driven by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy and by the teenage Brit Prime Minister David Cameron in an effort to build reputations for themselves. True they went through the motions of seeking the Arab world's permission before they intervened. But the very notion of asking permission from the Islamist dictators of the Arab League to take any action was also quite quaint. Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron have proceeded with their strategically dubious adventures in Libya while sneering quietly in superior tones about what were very necessary interventions by a genuinely principled President Bush and Prime Minister Blair in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, as I've said, the present Obama policy of bombing Gadaffi but leaving the actual fighting to ordinary Libyans actually increases the aforementioned risk that Al Qaeda (and Iran) will hijack the liberation. Nor is it clear that Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy, et al (Particularly Al, I hate him) have thought through what they're going to do after liberation with the hundreds of thousands of Libyans who actually support Gadaffi looking to flee the country. I'm hoping they're not simply planning on dumping them in Ireland. The signs aren't good. Just this week a delusional Irish government Minister called Maisie Lynch, announced that Ireland would be accepting what she called "refugees" from Libya. How nice of her to volunteer my country for such a task. Finally gently travellers of the Internet, I would point out in the inimitable words of Professor Tuco of the university of The Good The Bad And The Ugly: "Anyone who bomb the Gaddaffis and leave them alive, he know notheeng about Tuco."
***
TUNISIA: Some genuinely motivated feeling among people eager for a better life. The dictatorship here was moderate compared to most other Arab dictatorships. Al Qaeda are hoping to hijack the revolution.
***
EGYPT: Egypt is the most difficult Arab country to govern. It is the nearest thing any Arab country has come to a multicultural nation State. During the rulership of army strongman Hosnsi Mubarrak who governed for the past three decades, Egypt did not sponsor terrorism or make war on anybody. Al Qaeda is optimistic about hijacking reforms here. Hosni Mubarrak should not be on trial.
***
BAHRAIN: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Al Qaeda are jointly trying to destabilise the island nation of Bahrain. The Iranians previously tried to install a government here and failed.
***
YEMEN: The Islamic Republic of Iran and Al Qaeda are sponsoring the unrest in Yemen.
***
SOMALIA: The Islamic Port Royal of piracy. Not an Arab nation ethnically. But certainly so culturally. The pirates who threaten the shipping lanes of the world live in a little town on the Somali coast. All of them. Everyone knows where they are. They could be wiped out in a few hours. But the United Nations and African Union regard direct action against the pirates as an infringement of Somali sovereignty. So it doesn't happen. Somalia is a failed State. The Americans and Brits could conquer it and give its people law and order and civilisation in less than a week. But because the United Nations and African Union continue to sneer about dangers of Western imperialism, the liberation of Somalia has not happened. The people have endured twenty years of pure Islamist psychopathy. Before that came fifty years of Soviet Russian sponsored communist psychopathy. Then as now the United Nations and the African Union did nothing to help those people.
***
SUDAN: The Christian South has voted to secede after decades of genocidal murder at the hands of the Muslim North. The Muslims are already refusing to let one oil rich province go. The United Nations is in the middle hand wringing as usual. For thirty years the UN has shown itself unwilling or unable to bring Sudan's Islamist President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir to trial for the mass murder of four million people. Mr Al Bashir for his part shows no signs in letting up on his blood letting.
***
SYRIA: Syria is the most ferocious Arab police State. Hafez Al Assad, the father of the present dictator Bashir Al Assad, is known to have shot down at least ten of thousand of his citizens twenty years ago in order to retain control. Bashir is now endeavouring to catch on up on his Daddy's kill tally. Of all the Arabs the Syrians have had to live in the most abject fear of their government. The current uprising is the most legitimate and the most genuine of all the uprisings in the Arab world. In the past ten years the Syrian government ordered and carried out the assassination of the President of Lebanon as well as executing other leading Lebanese politicians. The United Nations refused to take any action against the Assad government of Syria even though a United Nations investigator wanted to charge Bashir Al Assad and his government with murder. The net result, in spite of one moderately honorable UN investigator, is that the United Nations has done nothing. It should be noted that as a direct consequence of President George Bush's decisive liberations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Syrians pulled their occupying army out of Lebanon. Signs are that with Barack Obama in the White House the Assad government in Syria will be back in Lebanon soon. Reportage of the ongoing Syrian slaughter of Syrian dissidents is scant on CNN and Sky News, simply because Bashir doesn't allow any reporters in. Unlike in Egypt, where the more moderate and civilised leader Mubarrak did permit reporters both entry and the freedom to report, and where CNN and Sky repaid him by demonising and then helping bring down his moderate and comparatively civilised government. The irony is screaming. As are the Syrian people.
***
IRAN: Iran is not classified as an Arab State, its people being categorised as a separate ethnicity, namely Persian. But there is a citizens uprising in Iran at present and the uprising stems from a similar disenchantment, to that felt by the Arabs, with the barbarism, economic failure, and institutionalised cultural psychopathy of Islamic dictatorship. Although you'd never know it from CNN or Sky News, the Islamist government of Iran is extirpating that uprising on daily basis. The Iranian dissidents have most recently showed an awesome courage and discernment, when in spite of thirty years of anti American propaganda, they chanted in the streets "Long live America." These people deserve better than the rulership of barbaric Soviet era nut jobs. These people deserve to live and to live free.
***
PAKISTAN: Pakistan is a zoo. They're not Arabs but they are Muslims and their culture bears all the hallmarks of Islamic psychopathy. The President (husband of the late Benazir Bhutto who was murdered by Al Qaeda and its allies) is an honorable man. The Prime Minister is not. The Supreme Court is headed by Chief Justice Chowdrey whose release from detention and reinstatement as Supreme Court Judge was imposed on Pakistan by Barack Obama. Chief Justice Chowdrey is an Islamist whose speciality is releasing Al Qaeda agents from custody on legal technicalities. The Pakistani secret service is irradiated with Islamists and Al Qaeda agents. The leading Pakistani opposition party leaders Nahwaz Sharif and Imram Khan are the Islamists in parliament who had the most to gain from Benazir's murder, ie they could never in their wildest dreams have beaten her in an election. Pakistan possesses atomic weapons and expertise. There is a high likelihood that Pakistan will facilitate Al Qaeda and/or its Islamist allies in procuring nuclear bombs and the capacity to make their own. The only hope for Pakistan and for those of us who monitor Pakistan, is that a clear majority of the people wanted to be governed by Benazir Bhutto rather than by the Islamist scruff they tend to be saddled with. If the Pakistanis really supported Al Qaeda en masse, there would be no need for Al Qaeda to murder so many of them on a daily basis. So, yes, there is hope.
***
posted by heelers | 9:44 PM
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