EXPOSING SAUDI ARABIA: JOHN BRADLEY INSIDE THE KINGDOM

Third Draft
(Coming Up: More Chance Encounters!)

CAUTIONARY NOTE:

The idea of dismantling yet another Arab country, Saudi Arabia, should nauseate all Arabs and Arab-Americans. After "googling" John Bradley, I discovered that he had accepted an invitation by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Which (possibly) puts his focus on the Hijaz and the Asir into perspective.

His focus on the Hijaz and the Asir as places that are different from the Najd, while culturally cute and liberating, could be used by the centric ideologues to marshal the West into dismantling yet another Arab country. Madhawi al-Rasheed, while well-meaning, had an article in Al-Quds al-Arabi (online) on May 1, 2006, in which she discussed secession as if it were an unavoidable though slow-moving reality.

This newsletter cordially would like to remind Madhawi al-Rasheed and Al-Quds al-Arabi (and this newsletter itself which has fallen for this act) that the very idea of highlighting the differences between Najd and other provinces plays into the hands of the Israel-centric entrepreneurs. True, the Saudi government colluded against a defenseless Arab country in an imperial grab of that country's oil fields by invading imperial forces. But it did it under the threat of its dismantling by Empire.

Hijazis, Asiris, Arabs of the Eastern Province, Madhawi al-Rasheed, and the Al-Quds al-Arabi--all should be aware that this is not a time for division. What may have looked like an idea that had been defeated by the insurgents in Iraq--the idea of dismantling Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries--is not yet dead. Centric entrepreneurs seem to have mobilized full force to keep it alive.

And it could be revived, couldn't it, when Empire decides to re-introduce forces into the Kingdom to confront Iran or, more likely, when it asks the Saudi government to pay for the confrontation by couching the payments into arms contracts with Britain, for example.

I beseech you not to play into their hands, especially Al-Quds Al-Arabi, which I respect and read religiously, as my brother 3Abdel-Bari 3Atwan and I think more-or-less alike. (I think he copies me, though I'm Maronite! My strongest protestation to brother Abdel-Bari is his reference to bin Laden as "Sheikh." In my book, he's a mass murderer. Sheikhs don't murder civilians.) Possibly, I've been had, unwittingly writing the review below. Thankfully, The last part of this review highlights the antidote to potential divisions within the Kingdom. Please read and re-read that part of the review.


I fell for the romantic travel-like account by John Bradley and wrote the review below before I had "googled" him. I'm keeping the review, intact. But, had I "googled" him earlier and discovered that he had accepted an invitation by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, I would've ignored the book
altogether.


He may have been well-meaning. Probably was. But Arabs and Arab Americans can ill-afford to see another Arab country dismantled. By the end of this Iraq fiasco, Arabs and Americans will have to gather the pieces and provide care for the orphans here and in Iraq who saw their fathers killed for dangerous ideas by hateful, greed-driven, and mediocre men and women.

Saudi Arabia would do well to activate its diplomacy to bring the United Nations into Iraq. It'd be doing a service for the majority of Americans who don't want our people to be there. I'm being naive since I should know better.

Enough said.

The Editor


Book review: John Bradley, SAUDI ARABIA EXPOSED, Inside the Kingdom in Crisis (New York: PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 2005.)

IN A WORD: A MUST READ.

ALONENESS: A DESERT ECHO?

There’s quite a lot of aloneness in John Bradley’s book. Never mind the title; never mind the words “exposed” and “crisis.” This is a book by (and about) an open-minded Westerner who worked in a foreign country, a trained reporter, who speaks that country’s language, and who observes. He is the stranger. There’s an echo to his thoughts, as if he needed badly to converse, but all he had around him were the subjects of his foray. He couldn’t seek in them the intellectual company he so badly needed; it would’ve been unfair. Many of them were his informants, anthropologically speaking, and he couldn’t ask them to go beyond that role. They would never have understood , anyway.

As Mr. Bradley discovered the Saudis, he seemed to go deeper into his aloneness, and converse with his own soul. Hence the echo. Hence the beauty of the book.

As I read it, I felt as if I was re-reading William Langewiesche, Sahara Unveiled, a book I delved into more than once. Not to mention that, since the first chapters in Bradley’s book read more like travel literature, I couldn’t avoid thinking of Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands, a book to which I return often. Thesiger, Langewiesche, and Bradley all traveled the desert. And I haven’t.

Optimistically perhaps, I don’t think the desert changes much, oil or no oil, wealth or no wealth. When the oil is exhausted, the desert will reclaim its identity, fully. Or so I hope, being a romantic.

As Mr. Bradley moves about the Kingdom, he takes us with him, and patiently describes what he sees. There are times where what he sees is painful, like poverty in slums that we would never have known existed, just as we (intently?) don’t want to see our own, having relegated their presence to the police, to superior court judges and lawyers.

INTO THE HIJAZ

We accompany Bradley into the Hijaz, as he plays current observations against historical background, which he does throughout his book. You’re never bored. And you can tell that Bradley liked the Hijazis, as he did the Asiris. I think the very presence of these, and their vocalization of a belief system that is not in tandem with the Wahhabi of the Najd, surprised him, pleasantly. He liked the fact (as the reader would) that Saudi Arabia is not a one-dimensional country. As if he has walked in on the Basques, or the Corsicans.

Hijazis took Bradley into their confidence to a point that I became concerned about him and his Hijazi “informants”–that the state would discover these liberal Hijazis and would retaliate against them. But neither Bradley nor his Hijazi friends were worried. His forays continued. The wonderful thing about Mr. Bradley was his ability to befriend the young and the old, to develop “informants” of all ages and both gender. Young men took Bradley the anthropologist with them on a picnic in the desert and he was privy to their thoughts about September 11. As if that wasn’t sufficient. Bradley gives us (over and over) the inside look that is usually is the domain of the political officer at a foreign Embassy: “There is also the problem of a general ignorance in the West about the history of a Hijazi family like the bin Ladens, and its essentially troubled contemporary relationship with the branch of the Al-Saud family–the Al-Sudairis–that now wield all the power in Saudi Arabia.” (At 34.)

AL-JOUF

In his second chapter, Mr. Bradley takes us with him to Al-Jouf where “[f]or thousands of years, some of the finest olives and dates in the world have been grown,” where some Europeans had recorded their visits, one as far back as 1845, and where “[a] large number of Roman coins have [..]been unearthed, indicating the neighboring limit of the Roman Empire and the commercial activity for which the city [Dumat Al-Jandal] was famous when it stood astride trade routes from Syria and Iraq to Yemen.” (At 46- 48.)

The book at times is the product of a scout sent by one culture to investigate another. In this case, Mr. Bradley, when the opportunity arises, re-traces the steps of the man who murdered 3000 American civilians. It therefore doesn’t escape him that Al-Jouf is close to Osama bin Laden’s heart, as bin Laden himself had lived in al-Jouf in the late 1960s, and had mentioned it in one of his post-September 11 speeches.

That the people of Al-Jouf are diehard Arab nationalists was shown when the Saudi government colluded with the United States in the invasion of an Arab country, having relinquished control to American troops of the airport in the nearby town of Arar. Bradley:

“This was deeply resented by most Saudis, but especially by Al-Jouf’s residents. They have historic links not only with Syria but also to Iraqis immediately across the border. Many local officers in the Saudi Army resigned at the time in protest [...] Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Saudis have sneaked into Iraq via Al-Jouf and other northern regions to join the resistance there to U.S.-led occupation forces.” (At 53.)

ASIR AND THE FLOWER MEN

How about these men from Asir with flowers in their hair? You want to know more? Too bad; you’d have to read the third chapter. Once again, the flower men have shown Bradley and his readers that Saudi Arabia was far from being one-dimensional, however much the Wahhabis and the West want to believe otherwise.

Many of the 15 Saudis involved in the September 11 hijacking had come from the underdeveloped, highly tribal parts of Hijaz and Asir. So Bradley takes us to Asir: “Moving deeper into the Asir region, the landscape began to change. Large hillocks of gray-brown rock gradually became hills, and then sharply defined escarpments [...] Immediately it became obvious how different the people of the Asir region are in both character and style to those of the rest of Saudi Arabia. In a word, you feel that you are in Yemen.” (At 81-82.)

Once again, consciously or not, Bradley is trying to understand the world of Osama bin Laden, perhaps to fulfill his function as his culture’s scout, an acute observer of that other culture that reared the cult that attacked the United States. So many of Al-Qaeda’s operatives came from one Asir tribe, the million-strong Al-Ghamdi. “When bin Laden wrote a poem praising the tribes of Asir, he made special mention of the Al-Ghamdis.” (At 70.)


THE EXPATRIATES

In Part II of the book, Mr. Bradley leaves the travel writer behind dimming significantly the existential echo. He now takes us into more of an urban setting. Once there, he portrays for our benefit expatriate life in the Kingdom, an important subject since expatriates are no small part of life and work in Saudi Arabia. He focuses on al-Qaeda’s operations against the expatriate community. He divulges the possibility, real and ominous, that these operatives had quite a lot of sympathy among the religious and other police. (At 114 and 115.)

He writes quite a lot about the Third World, mostly Asian, workers. Though he is critical of the treatment given these workers by the authorities and the Saudi people, he’s nonetheless fair. He sees some similarities with the status of undocumented workers in the United States.

“The sad fact is that there is hardly anything right about labor conditions for Asians in Saudi Arabia.” (At 124.) If you want to know the details, small and large print, you’d have to read the chapter. It’s thorough.

DEEPER YET

Crime, segregation of the sexes, and censorship are the subjects that finish John Bradley’s journey into Saudi Arabia. In the three areas, John Bradley the reporter comes through. One can’t avoid feeling that Bradley in these chapters had become all too familiar with Saudi society, politics, and certainly journalism. The observing scout dispatched by the Western culture has now become so seasoned he could address any and all Saudi topics. He is no longer surprised.

The chapter on the segregation of the sexes is nearly pornographic in uncovering a “secret.” It has so much about gays and lesbians dominating the social scene in the cities. Here Bradley could’ve made use of some anthropology. The prevalence of gay life in the Kingdom could have less to do with the unavailability of the other sex (the predominant view) than with a society whose population is bursting at the seams. In other words, had Saudi society, so traditional, wanted to put an end to the prevalence of homosexual life, it could’ve and it would’ve. But it has chosen to ignore this prevalence as the social consensus, that hidden and powerful force, probably is worried more about a population explosion than about Saudi men and women choosing an alternative path in their personal life. Here in the U.S. we send them to college to practice as much non-reproductive sex as their hormones dictate; there, the system is set up in such a way that they close their eyes to an expansive non-reproductive (by definition) homosexual life. Both systems aim for non-reproduction.

By the last one third of his book, Bradley had completely shed his aloneness. He’s no longer in search of Osama bin Laden’s world and the inner depths of his own soul. Instead, he’s entered the forever complex, shadowy, sleazy, and crime-ridden world of the city. He deals with this new reality as a reporter.

ARE THE SAUDIS SUNK?

In the last chapter, “Are the Saudis Sunk?,” Bradley gives the future a shot. As if to answer the many hostile voices in the West, he tries to explain the political ways of the Saudi royals. I read the chapter twice. Frankly, I don’t really think there’s a way of predicting the future. One can outline possibilities; there’s no law against that. John Bradley would’ve done well avoiding the topic altogether.

WHERE FROM HERE?

But I won’t.

After reading the book, I became convinced that Saudi Arabia, if it were to stay united and minimize the possibility of rebellions, would have to stay true to its Arab and Islamic identity. And I don’t mean empty talk. Should its leaders turn their back on their identity, they’ll face trouble that is certain. For instance, can Saudi Arabia ignore Arab Syria’s quest for its Joulan and expect to draw the support of the Asiris? Or the Shiites? Or the Najdis? Doubtful. The Saudi leadership’s fate would be similar to that of the Egyptian. Money in higher oil prices (thanks in no small part to the mediocrity of the Bush Administration’s strategists) has bought the Saudi leaders time, after they had colluded with the United States, (its not-so-hidden ally, Israel), and Iran against an Arab country. But I doubt that they could take another like chance, especially if income from oil diminishes, or that Empire burdens them by having them pay for its confrontation with Iran.

The late President Sadat turned his back on Egypt’s Arab identity, and made Egypt fully into a vassal of the United States and Israel. As a result, the current Egyptian leadership is eminently insignificant, in Egypt, in the Arab world, and internationally. Egyptian society lost its sense of mission: To be always ready to assist other Arab countries. When it lost its sense of mission, it crumpled onto itself. Muslims and Copts, though having the same background, became strangers to each other. How could it be otherwise?

When Lebanon was on fire in the late 1970s, the late President Sadat stood watching, feigning confusion. The United States mandarins along with their Jordanian and Israeli allies and the Lebanese Deuxieme Bureau (Army intelligence) had unleashed the civil war in an attempt to finish the Palestinian resistance movement, once an for all. Their plans backfired. They lost control of the course of the war. Lebanon was destroyed. Still is. Sadat stood watching. He didn’t understand that no one (I mean no one) would have dared start the Lebanese civil war had Arab (not Uncle Tom) Egypt still been involved in the Arab world and had come to Lebanon’s help, even militarily. Instead of forcing Empire to deal with the necessity of sponsoring a Palestinian state, of forcing Israel to withdraw to pre-1967 borders, of returning the Joulan in full to Syria, Egypt stood castrated, its leadership (I dare say) savoring its helplessness and the agony of a sister Arab country.

(Sadly for Lebanon, Empire seems to be pursuing the same failed strategy in Lebanon, yet again.)

As with Egypt, so it is with Saudis Arabia. It ignores its Arab mission to its detriment. Its people need that sense of mission to bind together. They need to rush to aid the Palestinians form their state; to help Syrians regain their Joulan, and so on. If the government doesn’t do it, the Saudi people will, and there’s no say what methods they will use. It’s terror today; it will be something altogether new tomorrow.

OF BRITISH BLACKMAIL AND SAUDI MANHOOD

OF BRITISH BLACKMAIL AND SAUDI MANHOOD

(Second d r a f t)

by tony khater and zein al-urban*
(*Pseudonym)


THE BRITISH BLACKMAIL


In late July of last year, Tony Blair blackmailed the Saudi royal family. He spoke about the Saudi government as a “regime,” and talked about Saudi Arabia’s need to democratize.

A specialist at satellite-mating (meaning he can’t get a female without standing besides a real male–the United States-- to fool the female into thinking that he has the real manly croak), Blair expressed his full support of the greater Middle East initiative–an Israel-inspired American plan to re-focus the Arabs and crush their dream of unity-- cultural, religious, economic, or otherwise.

A reporter asked him whether he had discussed “Saudi extremism” on his stop in Riyadh, on his way to Singapore, and whether he brokered an arms deal. Mr. Blair answered that he did raise the nature of the “regime.” Waving the blackmail club yet again, he said that the Saudi “regime” was doing its level best to protect the Saudi-Iraqi border. The threat: He could excite the big frog (the U.S.) enough to dismantle Saudi Arabia..


THE ANATOMY OF THE BRITISH BLACKMAIL

Were the members of the Saudi royal family terrified? You bet. ( We weren’t there; we’re guessing.) Madhawi al-Rashid, an occasional contributor to an Arab daily, once reminded that daily’s readers that the Saudi decision-makers have an inferiority complex towards the British. Could that explain their shedding of their manhood when Tony Blair blackmailed them? In part, probably. The reference to “regime” (instead of “government”), however, smacked of a larger blackmail scheme. The Brits and the Americans probably have so much dirt on the decision-makers in Saudi Arabia. Should these ever dare to not accommodate them (for the Brits, it means the payment of protection money–-arms contracts--even though the Brits can’t protect anyone), the Brits (and the Americans) would wage a slander campaign against the members of the Saudi royal family and beef up the Saudi opposition. (See below.)


THE ANATOMY: A SAUDI GEM, A BRITISH CLUB-IN-HAND

Better yet, somewhere in London, the British have a gem. No, not the type they can exhibit at an antique show. In fact, he’s not really scintillating at all. The gem is a Saudi opposition figure by the name of Dr. Saad al-Faqih. Dr. Saad heads a group by the name of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA). Early in the life of this newsletter, its editor used to read Dr. Saad’s website on a regular basis. Reading the website, one would never ever have thought that the man and his movement could inspire so much fear in the hearts of the Saudi decision-makers, especially the members of the royal family. But fear he did (and does) inspire.

The Saudis are so scared of the London-based opposition figure that they always bring him up in their dealings with British officials.

The wisdom of the story: If you’re a country that has lost its global military reach, and kowtows to Empire, and if you have a Prime Minister and a Foreign Secretary who kiss ass well, yet know how to blackmail, for good measure, you get yourself a Saudi opposition figure and give him the ability to broadcast a radio program directed at the Kingdom and to run an anti-government and anti-Saud website. You will land fat arms contracts.


THE PRIZE: AN ARMS CONTRACT TO END ALL ARMS CONTRACTS.

In early March of this year, about seven months or so after Tony Blair’s blackmail, we learned that the British nabbed a huge arms contract. The deal would be between 12 and 70 billion dollars. As SaudiPolitics had repeatedly speculated, the Saudis would like to channel the money to the big frog, the United States. But the invader of Arab Iraq hadn’t been popular in the Kingdom before the invasion and the dismantling of an Arab country. After the invasion, the Arab and Muslim public, including the Saudi, became convinced that the United States was doing a favor so to speak to Israel. Total linkage between Israel’s repression of its Palestinians and the American torture of Arabs at Abu Ghraib had been achieved. The United States, in the minds of the Arab and Muslim public, had thus moved from being resented for its support of Israel’s theft of Arab land to being outrightly hated as a proxy of Israel, not the other way around.

(This newsletter had warned about the linkage years ago. But the arrogant Euro-Caucasians, their native informants, and the Israel-centric entrepreneurs, liberal and others, were savoring their victory with the President.)

Hey, wait a minute. Britain too invaded Iraq!

No one takes the British seriously, or their armies, or their Prime Minister, or their Foreign Secretary. Viewing the fact that the Saudis had to pay off the United States, without incurring the wrath of their populace, Britain was the lesser evil, and the U.S. probably had chosen Tony Blair anyway to act as conduit Tony Blair’s blackmail probably was about the amount of the payoff that Britain can keep. The Saudis, in turn, wanted to keep as much money as possible to diversify their security away from Empire and Europe, towards China. The U.S. and Britain, after all, had been defeated. And they have little say in Tehran. China hasn’t been defeated and its say in Tehran (the country the Saudis need to worry about) is tremendous.


HOW TO WIN ARMS CONTRACTS IN SAUDI ARABIA: THE FORMULA.


Do tell please, how does a country with an arms industry win contracts in Saudi Arabia?

Okay, here’s the formula. If you use it, we’d insist on a cut.


First: Become a satellite-mating country

Get under the umbrella of Empire and bark (or croak) along with it. In short, become a satellite- mating country. The big frog (the U.S.) stands alone and croaks impressively (Shock'n awe stuff) to attract a female (oil fields). The satellite-mating country (e.g., Britain) hides nearby and acts as if it’s the one doing the impressive croaking. The superior mating call of the big frog draws the females to the croak. One or more would arrive and some would spot the satellite-mating frog first, and think he is the one producing the impressive sound. They mate with him.

(That smart croaker is akin to what anthropologists have named the “sneaky fucker,” that monkey who waits until the head of the harem splits from the colony to fight off an intruder. Taking advantage of his absence, the sneaky fucker moves in on the alpha-monkey’s females and mates with them. Does he remind you of a friend of yours? The one who's always there?)

Second: Collect dirt.

Make sure you obtain a lot of dirt on the princes and the other decision-makers of Saudi Arabia.

Third: Invite an opposition figure to your country.

Invite an opposition figure to locate in your capital. Make sure he doesn’t starve. Get him access to an internet radio and have him post a website. (He’ll probably do all of these by himself, anyway.) In addition, attract an Arab newspaper or two, which make their pages available to the Saudi opposition. Meet the editor-in-chief at a restaurant and exchange briefcases that look alike. Or, better yet, Let Qatar finance them. Cheaper. Libya should soon follow.


Fourth: Learn to kiss ass and give your Saudis a cut.

Your Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary should take lessons in kissing ass, even (especially!) Iran’s. Put differently: Hooray U.S. invasions and disastrous policies, give these policies a multinational veneer, and kiss ass with Iran. (You don’t want to lose too many troops in Iraq. Kissing ass, therefore, is a must.) No, it’s not as difficult as you might think; your Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have been kissing ass throughout their life. Your Prime Minister, if he is anything like Tony Blair or Angela Merkel, already is an American asset (we have no proof; but we can smell these things.) He/she has kissed ass throughout his/her career.

And don’t forget to pay off your Saudis. There are plenty of ways to hide the cut. Be creative.

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NOTE: Intermission: THE LARGE PICTURE

*** Politicians love to take credit for matters that have nothing to do with their efforts. The mayor of a city, for instance, will take credit for a lower crime rate when in fact the lower rate is due to a lower birth rate a couple of decades before the mayor's tenure, and to lower interest rates during his/her tenure which created an abundance of construction jobs for those who would otherwise be selling illegal drugs.

*** Tony Blair’s good fortunes, we suspect, are due to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s cheap money policy, started by Alan Greenspan eighteen years ago, which bloated the globe, including Britain, with imperial U.S. currency and helped the British economy along.

*** The cheap money policies of the Fed created the bubble phenomenon–-in stocks, in real estate, in oil and precious metals. The bubbles in turn inculcated a sense of wealth in U.S. consumers and have contributed immensely to a party-like spending spree.

*** China in turn benefitted hugely from this phenomenon and piled up an impressive reserve of U.S. currency . It re-injected a good part of these reserves in the U.S. economy through the purchase (mostly) of ten-year bonds, accepting a relatively low return. Seller-financing, of sorts. The Chinese re-investment in U.S. bonds extended the period of “feeling wealthy” by the U.S. consumer and, with it, the spending on Chinese-made products. As a consequence, China itself has felt wealthy and its foreign policy mandarins have gained in power and prestige.

*** Instead of invading countries, China has used its large currency reserves to sign joint ventures–with Iran, with Saudi Arabia, with Sudan, with Venezuela, and so on. Instead of joint ventures, the United States opted to occupy the oil fields of Iraq, as a shortcut so to speak, to securing the flow of cheap oil and making money for those businesses that have an association with the administration.

*** Here, the failure of the United States in controlling the oil fields of Iraq, to exercise what Zbigniew Brzezinski had called “critical leverage” against China and Europe, has weakened the United States significantly. It is at present competing for oil with a country (China) which the United States had made wealthy. In this competition, China is ahead since it has relied for a while on the policy of joint ventures while the U.S. was dreaming of military occupation of oil fields.

*** This is to say that American politicians have weakened their country by weakening the non-military arms of the federal government, upon whom the responsibility would've fallen to pursue joint ventures, alternative energy, and so on of basic public policies that would prepare a country for the future. These politicians weakened the federal government by providing lavish tax cuts, refusing to raise the taxes on oil consumption, not investing–by government–in alternative energy–in short, by running the country as a free-for-all party.

*** The Republican party bears a lot of the responsibility for this: Its old guard have historically pushed a weaken-the-federal-government agenda, while its new populist base (the Christian-Jewish right) has pushed a spend-without-limitations agenda. Both of these have weakened the country’s foreign policy. It would take a recession to force China to spend its huge reserves on domestic consumption and welfare programs, to make up for the unemployment that would result from the recession in the United States. That would level the playing field for the U.S.in acquiring oil contracts.

*** But can American politicians afford a recession by raising taxes? Our guess is that this recession would have to be engineered by the Federal Reserve, more to dampen demand for the limited oil resource and avoid a more severe recession that would result from the eventual failure of the cheap money policies. (The Fed doesn’t take into account foreign policy considerations, except that it might coordinate its interest rate policies with those of Europe and Japan.)

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Fifth: Learn how to fail but act as if you care

Fail as much as you want in resolving the issues that are closest to the heart of the Saudi public–the Palestinian state and the Joulan. No hurry. The Saudi decision-makers are as failed as you are. Just act as if you care.

Sixth: Learn to relax: the Saudi leaders lack creativity.

This factor doesn’t require you to do any work. Your Saudi decision-makers lack creativity. And so, you’re dealing with patsies. How so, you might ask. Here’s a case study:

The (poor)French President has worked so hard to obtain an arms contract with Saudi Arabia. And he’s failed. Now, it would make sense for the Saudis to give France a contract that would free France somewhat from Empire’s hold. This relative freedom would give the French the role of a catalyst to speed some things up: a Middle East settlement, which would rob the Saudi and Arab street of the most potent mobilization issues, dear to the street’s heart: The Israel-Palestine conflict and the Joulan. Not to mention that the resolution of these issues would de-link U.S. foreign policy from that of Israel, and push forward a Western country in competing with Russia.

(Note: The Bush Administration mobilized what communities it could to gather up a base of support for its invasion of Iraq. It targeted the right-wing and liberal sections of the Jewish community who lent their support to the Iraq project, unaware that they are being used–cynically-- by the political strategists of the Bush Administration, and equally unaware that weakening Iraq would not necessarily be helpful for Israel. Too late.)


It would also (relatively) liberate the Saudi decision-makers. As soon as Britain issues a threat, for example, Saud al-Faisal would head to Paris, order a pain-au-chocolat and a café noir, and sign another contract with the French arms industry. As a consequence, the British would have to think twice before they blackmail the Saudis. They can’t compete. They really don’t have the cuisine. To quote Frasier Crane’s words to Daffney, “Why don’t you boil some meat?” In addition, should Britain beef up their Saudi opposition, a pro-Arab France would act as an antidote in the Saudi street.


Not to mention that France should provide an alternative to Iran. Surprise. Surprise. Allow us, if you would, to explain. The Arab and Muslim public believes that the entire West is made up of heartland Christian Crusaders and urban right wing (we’ll add liberal) Israel-centric extremists, who find Arabs and Muslims revolting–call it a new anti-Semitism.


(Please don’t talk to us about the United States’s public charm campaign to win the hearts of the Arab and Muslim public. It’s either naive, or stupid. Choose. Or maybe it’s the product of Caucasian European minds which haven’t evolved since the days they had raped the people of the globe. You can’t dismantle an Arab country, kill tens of thousands of Arabs who had nothing to do with September 11, orphan their children, torture them at Abu Ghraib, —and then ask to win their hearts!)

So, a pro-Arab France would be a breath of fresh air for the West. The French seemed to have wanted this. But Empire encircled them. It even snatched Algeria away from them and will probably have bases there or, at a minimum, naval access, to buttress the failed Greater Middle East project. Empire even succeeded in having one of its assets ( Angela Merkel) win elections and become German Chancellor, robbing France as a consequence of its strategic industrial depth–Germany.

Seventh: Say you love Saudi democracy.

Last, but not least, be prepared to state convincingly, after you gain the contracts, that the Saudi democratic experiment is a proven success. So, on or about April 18 of this year, Jack Straw appeared in Riyadh in what was labeled as “Congress of the Two kingdoms.” Now that the Saudis had surrendered their manhood, and gave Britain (and the United States) a $12 to $70 billion arms contract, the Foreign Secretary did his share, in exchange. He praised Saudi Arabia for its political reforms. Wow!



********* ****************** **************************** * * ** **

NOTE: I’m currently reading John R. Bradley, Saudi Arabia Exposed. The Introduction and Chapter One foretell a good book. It reads like a mix of political analysis and travel literature, making it insightful and exciting. I’ll try to review it of I get the time. The Editor.

NO WAR. (Revised and Updated, 4/21/06.)

In memory: J.A, my uncle--always a realist; always an Arab.

SAUDI ARABIA MEETS EVERYONE’S EXPECTATIONS

THE REGIONAL FRAMEWORK: IS IRAN A STRATEGIC THREAT?

After shooting the United States in the foot and Iraq in the back, the Bush Administration is clamoring to balance Iranian power in the Gulf, as it prepares to change (eventually) Iran’s government. It is nervously knocking on the Gulf countries’ doors, trying to rally them to unite behind it. Ominously, no political coalition of consequence is watching the Bush Administration. As with the decision to invade Arab Iraq, there hardly is any serious debate about Iran and whether in fact it constitutes a threat to the security of the United States. It seems as if the American body politic is taking the word of the Bush Administration as fiat.

Is Iran really a threat to the Gulf? Or to the United States? Or even to Empire’s favored protectorate? Or are the Bush Administration and its Uncle Toms in the region concocting a bogeyman to satisfy Empire’s ill-defined and self-destructive ambitions, and the protectorates’ insatiable quest for more dollars?

IRAN: THAT STRATEGIC THREAT...NOT

Robert Joseph, Undersecretary of State, is visiting the Gulf states. He’s trying to rally them to pursue strict export controls to assure that no components for nuclear weapons make their way to Iran. The background for this visit is a Presidential decision (or, more likely, Vice-Presidential) to rally the bureaucracy to face the “strategic threat”–Iran. How is Iran a strategic threat? We’re given no answer. We’re being coaxed, once again, to trust the administration.

Trust not a dog that limps. (Portuguese proverb.)

If Iran does acquire a nuclear arsenal, how will that change the balance of power? Say it dispatches a missile carrying a nuclear warhead against Israel. Israel, deploying its German-supplied submarines, would be certain to use its second-strike capability to wipe out Iran. A balance of terror, not nuclear war, likely will be the outcome of Iran's acquisition of nuclear technology.

Maybe (just maybe) Iran wants a nuclear arsenal to deter a sooner-or-later invasion by a better-prepared Empire. That, perhaps, is the only scenario where a rational Iran (and it is rational) would use its nuclear arsenal.

For how could Iran be a “strategic threat” when all Western experts seem to agree that its conventional weapons are obsolete.

Perhaps therefore, just perhaps, Empire has come to realize (finally) that it cannot fight unconventional warfare since a huge number of Muslims are ready candidates for recruitment against an invading Empire. And it is here–in unconventional warfare–that Empire sees Iran as a strategic threat, not in its acquisition of a nuclear arsenal. In other words, the Bush Administration is using Iran’s attempts to acquire nuclear weapons as a pretense to finish it as an Islamic state, as a reference to Muslims the world over, that vast sea of Muslims who are dissatisfied with Empire’s aggressive intrusion into their lives.

But how’s Empire to change Iran? Thinking as a true reactionary, Empire has bought into the terrifically asinine idea that setting up a client state in Iran is its only option. Moronic. Because the chaos that should precede the hoped-for puppet government should produce an unpredictable outcome. Here, a strong case can be made that a client-state (a puppet government) could be the least likely probability.

After the Iraq debacle, one wonders whether Empire will ever see a reasoned debate about Iran instead of the sadistic, anti-Muslim, hateful, biased, and mediocre blabber that preceded the aggression against and invasion of a defenseless Iraq. Having mobilized its heartland Bible Christians and its right-wing Jews for war on Arab Iraq, one wonders whether the U.S. has become a rabid anti-Muslim power, a true crusader state.

Mr. Joseph (you remember him?) will get nowhere in the Gulf. No, they won’t kick him out. They’ll promise to keep a watchful eye. But these countries are hyper-mercantile and the lure of trade, even in components for a nuclear arsenal, should trump imperial concerns. It would matter little that the U.S. is planning to turn Dubai into a huge intelligence center directed at the Islamic Republic, according to the Iranian press. The Gulf fiefdoms’ mercantile culture, the presence of significant Shiite minorities in these fiefdoms, and Sunni sympathy with the country that is defending Muslims, should keep trade flowing, even in sensitive material.


THE CAMP OF THE DESPERATE GANGS UP ON IRAN: TURKEY TO THE RESCUE.

Empire has prodded the regional desperate (minus Turkey), those who eased the invasion of a fellow Arab country (non-Arab Turkey excepted), to meet. The Judases. They’re looking for ways to contain Iran. They’re lying to their people. Nothing new. And their people know it–they know them to be traitors, Judases. These “leaders” would like their people to think that they’re doing this to trump an Iranian-American deal that would compromise the Arab identity of Iraq. But that’s a ruse. Empire, exhausted and helpless, wants them to do something –anything, including the stoking of Shia-Sunni strife--to help out.

And so, the camp of the desperate convened in Cairo early this month. Representatives of the intelligence services of Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) met in the Egyptian capital to draft a strategy to counter Iran’s influence in Iraq. This camp, of course, includes Israel as silent partner.

(Midway into the Iraq occupation, Empire was able to silence its favored protectorate’s politicians, whose child-like show-off (to their imperial benefactor) and machismo blabber was fueling even more the anger and indignation of the Muslim public. And now Seymour Hersh tells us in his most recent (and yet another explosive) article that Empire is so worried about Israel bombing Iran, and causing a backlash in the Muslim world, that the American President in Cleveland recently asserted that the U.S. will use military might to protect Israel. Comment: It’s hilarious, isn’t it? Do the imperials really think that the Muslim street and its allies within Muslim governments draw a difference between Israel and Empire? Hello!)

Turkey is the only country in the group of the desperate which has capable and sufficient armed forces. No other country in the group can send effective troops into Iraq to fight the Shiite militias, some of the Arab Sunni ones, and Iranian Guards of the Islamic Revolution–and the Kurds!

Empire is compensating Turkey handsomely: It has promised to give it new F-16 fighter jets, but only if it proves a good servant.

One wonders therefore whether Turkey is offering its troops to protect these governments or, more likely, to re-establish an Arab Sunni regime in Iraq, on behalf of Empire? It matters little, anyway.

For Turkey is once again preoccupied with an insurgency of its own, Kurdish, in the southeastern part of the country. This, after a pleasant lull that lasted over a decade. Clashes with KDP guerrillas and demonstrations have once again shown Turkey to have a burden that’s onerous enough to keep it preoccupied away from the Arab Middle East.

The most recent clashes took place in mountains on the border with Iraq. Five Turkish troops were killed and six were wounded. To make a point, Iran’s ambassador to Ankara commented that the American plan for a Greater Middle East includes an independent Kurdistan as an American base. Comforting words for Turkey. Not. He announced this to highlight the importance of cooperation among his country, Turkey, and Syria as the only means to thwart the formation of a Kurdish thorn in Turkey’s side.

Kurdish alienation in Turkey (very deep and possessing complex socio-economic justification) should complicate that country’s application for membership in the European community. One condition for membership is that Turkey give its Kurds their full cultural rights. You get the point.

All of this by way of saying that the Turkish house is made of glass. Hence Abdullah Gul’s statement to Turkish Television early in April that Iran and Syria have been pursuing the PKK guerrillas--the armed separatists of the Kurdistan Workers' Party. He wished Iraq would do the same in the north. What he is saying is that Iran and Syria are able to support the PKK to wreak havoc in his country. And that the United States has created a protectorate in northern Iraq which unavoidably is a source of severe trouble for Turkey. So much so that Turkey needs the cooperation of Iran and Syria.

Turkey’s interest in assisting the camp of the Arab Judases possibly conceals a Turkish intention to go into Iraq and finish the Kurdish armed rebellion once and for all. Not to complicate things for the United States. But Turkey has had it. The United States is incapable of stopping the PKK. If it tries, it’ll lose the allegiance of the Kurdish militias, the Besh Merga, the only solid pillar left in the Pentagon’s disastrous Iraq Project.

And maybe, just maybe, Empire is getting ready to turn its back on its Kurdish allies and to offer Turkey a (more-or-less) free hand in northern Iraq, as a quid pro quo for its assistance. It’d place limits on its forays. But things don’t always work as planned, F-16s or not. Bye Mr. Talabani. Time to put to work that vivid opportunism.

(Update: On or about 4/19/06, Kurdish sources in Baghdad said that Iran and Turkey had dispatched troops to their border areas with Kurdish Iraq. On or about 4/21/06, it was revealed that Turkey had dispatched over 40,000 troops to the Kurdish southeastern part of the country. Earlier, the United States had vetoed a Turkish agreement with Israel to have the latter refurbish Turkish F-16s, and had said that it would be considering giving Turkey new ones. There's a distinct possibility therefore that the U.S. is using the F-16s as a bargaining chip with Turkey, to control any military activities it is planning to conduct in northern Iraq, or to block them altogether. It's unclear why Iran had moved troops to its Kurdish border with Iraq. Was it in tandem with Turkey? In reaction? It's being said that the U.S. has been using Kurdish separatists against Iran. Was Iran moving troops to retaliate against the Kurds?)

SAUDI ARABIA PLAYS UP TO ALL PARTIES.

In this state of real desperation and affected Gulf concern about Iran, Saudi Arabia is playing up to all sides. It’s unclear whether it is hedging its bets or whether it is confused. Likely the first.

CONTAIN IRAN COUNCIL (CIC)–A CIA-SAUDI PROJECT.

Retreating (seemingly) from his idea of evolving a Contain Iran Council (CIC) (Please refer to January 29, 2006: “IRAN TO SAUD AL-FAISAL: WE HEAR YOU , LOUD AND CLEAR.”), Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Kingdom’s Foreign Minister, recently stated that Iran’s military maneuvers in the Gulf and its civilian nuclear program were not a threat to the Kingdom. He said that it was Israel’s monopoly of nuclear weapons that posed the greatest threat to the region.

He is planning to visit Teheran soon.

Are we to interpret the foreign minister’s statements to mean that the Kingdom has abandoned its policy to contain Iran–the CIC project? Hardly. Crown Prince Sultan has recently completed a visit to Japan. The true motivation behind the visit likely was to bring Japan into the fold of the CIC. Al-Hayat, a tool of Saudi intelligence (when needed), featured an article (4/6/06) by Abdel-Aziz bin Othman bin Saqr, President of the Khaleej Center for Research about the visit. Hidden in the lengthy article was one of the main reasons why CP Sultan was visiting Japan: To recruit it into the CIC.

Thus, Saud al-Faisal’s idea of creating a contain Iran global council is not dead. (The idea is really a CIA-Saudi idea, floated by a former CIA at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution–please refer to January 29, 2006: “IRAN TO SAUD AL-FAISAL: WE HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR.” ) CP Sultan has been drafted to help out in that effort. CP Sultan’s visit likely was coordinated with the United States. The U.S., in the second half of March, had denied that it had been placing pressure on Japan not to invest in the development in an Iranian oil field which is expected to be the second largest in the world. What is denied usually is closer to the truth.

CP Sultan spoke in the name of the Kingdom and the other members of he Gulf Cooperation Council. All were said to be concerned about a nuclear Iran. Japan was all ears. Why? Saudi Arabia has financial clout and can use it with Japan: It’s estimated that the Kingdom’s income this year will be about $160 billion, compared to an equally hefty $150 billion last year. Japan, therefore, would have to listen.

SAUDI ARABIA: UNDER EMPIRE’S BOOT, NOT FULLY, NOT YET.

Not that the Japanese (according to the Iranians) have not being doing their share. Jomhouri-yi Islami, an Iranian daily, in early April, accused the staff of the Japanese embassy in Tehran of collecting information on behalf of the West to sow strife among Iran’s various groups. In addition, the Iranian daily said that the Japanese embassy had paid hefty amounts of money to Iranians to supply it with secrets. A threat against Japan?

The Saudis have little choice but to accommodate Empire for fear that Empire would unleash an anti-Saudi campaign among its public and Congress. Stuart Levey, U.S. Treasury’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, recently testified before the Senate Banking Committee. He said that the Kingdom was “doing an excellent job” fighting operatives of Osama bin Laden. He said, however, that American concerns have remained about such matters as the existence of “deep-donor pockets” and the abuse of charities, both to support terrorism in Iraq and other places.

He said that there was a lag between Saudi rhetoric and Saudi implementation of anti-terror financial policies. His threat: We’ll see if there’s a gap.

In other words, Empire is giving Saudi Arabia more time to rein in the private financial network that mostly funds Iraqi Arab Sunnis. But Saudi Arabia faces a severe constraint in reining in this network: The Arab Sunnis of Iraq were once the Arab World’s most efficient and dedicated balancer of Iranian power who Empire stabbed in the back and sadistically tortured them at Abu Ghraib. How can the Saudi government ask its people not to stand by their side? Has Empire ever heard of nationalism?

Hence (probably) CP Sultan’s compensatory proxy work on behalf of Empire in Japan. True, we can’t rein in fully the private financial network that finances our brethren in Iraq; but we can help in other ways, he seemed to be saying.

WILL IT WORK?

Playing up to all sides (Iran, Empire, and the Saudi public) may not be such a bad policy. Iran, which can exact revenge inside the Kingdom, probably will not. It’s to its advantage to not implement any policy that would give Empire a reason to enact the draft and dispatch to the Gulf and Iraq a million troops. That Iranian restraint provides Saudi Arabia room to maneuver.

And the Kingdom needs Iran:

(1) Iran is the Kingdom’s only hope to place pressure on Israel to resolve its differences with the Palestinians and return the Arab Joulan to Syria. Palestinian misery is felt in the Kingdom more than it is in Kuwait or the other Gulf countries. These are highly mercantile cultures which have little patience with matters that are outside the realm of material gain, food, and biological reproduction.

In effect, the Iranian army has now become the Arab and Muslim public’s army. And no public wants its army defeated. If anything, some Arab analysts have expressed concern that Iran’s flaunting of its conventional weaponry (obsolete according to all analysts) would result in its conventional defeat, a la Nasser. It seems as if they are sending the message to Iran to stay true to its specialty: To appeal to rallying issues within the larger Arab and Muslim World: Israel-Palestine; the Joulan; and to focus on using its Muslim appeal with the street. That it would make a mistake to be drawn into a conventional war with the United States.


(2) Iran keeps the little principalities (and even Yemen) in check and needing Saudi Arabia. The principalities (UAE, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman ) have found solace in America’s direct intervention in the region. America’s presence has allowed them to free themselves from a servile state vis a vis Saudi Arabia. In their excitement about their new-found freedom, and to curry favor with their imperial protector, they’ve reached out to Israel, before the latter had made any significant concessions to the Palestinians and the Syrians. (For instance, in mid-March, 2006, Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifah, Crown Prince of Bahrain, advised Hamas publicly to recognize Israel.) Iran possesses the club to keep these mercantile principalities on their toes. (Please refer to March 02, 2006: “IT’S GETTING NASTY, DIRTY, AND QUITE UGLY.” And: October 07, 2004: “UPPING THE ANTE WITH IRAN...”)

(3) An Iranian “defeat” would mean that Empire would have Saudi Arabia totally (not partially) under the imperial boot. Many here are aching to reach that goal. Once under the boot, fully, little know-it-all imperial liberals, racist Christian-right supremacists, and Jewish right-wing Arab-hating fascists, would flood the Saudi protectorate and teach its people a lesson or two about proper behavior. (It’s a huge network of imperial employment.)

Thomas Friedman of The New York Times would visit to lecture about how to hooray wars against Arabs and orphan American and Arab children, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy would open offices across the Kingdom and teach Arabs how to bow in the presence of its fellows, and how to kiss Empire’s ass by Kissing Israel’s.

In addition, a few repulsive-looking “3Arab” power-kiss-ass would visit and teach Arabs how to deliver one’s own people to the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib, cloaking themselves with the American flag and claiming that no one really knew Iraq before the invasion.

Not to mention that a sector of influential and venomous Arab and Muslim-hating imperials (centric entrepreneurs) still wants to break up Saudi Arabia. (Refer to Laurent Murawiec, Princes of Darkness, The Saudi Assault on the West. The book is such a mediocre treatise which purpose is to create a Saudi boogeyman to replace the Soviet. The author seems to have once specialized in the affairs of the Soviet Union and has since been searching for a country to which he can apply his obsolete expertise.)

In short, the Saudi Kingdom can look forward to a rich experience in kissing ass once Iran is "defeated."

To avoid alienating Iran therefore is a policy goal for the Saudis. Hence Saud al-Faisal conciliatory statements. Accordingly, the Saudis are stepping in a minefield when they work to further their Contain-Iran-Council (CIC) project, even if only to please Empire. But they’re equally concerned with any backlash in the U.S. Congress. Their solution: Accommodate all. Besides, what do they care if Iran possesses nuclear weapons. In this age of unconventional warfare, these would be a burden and hardly an advantage. In Iran’s case, their only benefit would be to deter Empire from invading if ever Empire is able to muster the forces needed after the Iraq debacle.

In the meanwhile, the Arab public, including the Saudi, finds solace in Iran’s ability to stand up to Empire and its Israeli protectorate. Even if Iran is defeated conventionally, that public knows that it has plans that improve on the Baath’s survival strategy: To be prepared for a long haul war of attrition with Empire and its favored protectorate.

Countries do learn from experience, theirs and that of others. Empire had ignored Israel's defeat by unconventional methods in south Lebanon, moving into Iraq without a worry and an abundance of arrogance. Let's hope, at a minimum, that it'll now leave military planning to discriminating generals. Perhaps then we would have avoided quagmire altogether.

CHANCE ENCOUNTERS II: S P O O K Y

NOTE

I’ve fictionalized this account (second in a series) to protect the identity of the various characters: The good, the bad, and the ugly. It updates the first account, Chance Encounters, which you should read first.

THE ANATOMY OF AN INTELLIGENCE SERVICE ATTACK...ON ME.

KENWOOD: THE OLD CHERRY TREES

Two friends from Pennsylvania dropped in on Saturday. They came to Washington to see the cherry trees. I sent them to the Kenwood neighborhood where the trees are older and the tourists (mostly) local. When they walked into my place, they headed straight to a dresser and to a laptop and said hello to the two tangibles.
There’s nothing like having an intelligence service go after you. And you defenseless.

How did an intelligence service get to monitor my online activities?

I was able to piece together what had taken place, with the help of one government employee and a young technician I hired.


THE MAN-IN-THE-MIDDLE COMPUTER VIRUS ATTACK: ENSLAVING A FRIEND.

Faith and his circle/cell staged what my sources called a “third party attack,” or the “man-in-the-middle” attack. They sent me an email from the “support” section at a Saudi web publication, expressing interest in buying SaudiPolitics’ web domain. (I've always replied to these by referring them to my lawyers.) Faith must've become desperate when I had begun to distance myself from him. He couldn't lose control of the man he was assigned to mind, even if the minding meant his enslavement of his friend. His handler must've been pushing him.

Soon after receiving the email, I typed away the URL (http//:www.saudi....com.) A screen appeared; it flashed all-white. I should’ve known right then that I've been sent a virus. Whatever anti-virus program I had didn’t pick it up. Using Google, I later found out the Saudi web publication was legitimate.

So, for a short while, Faith’s intelligence/political cell had spoofed the Saudi web site, long enough to nab me. I did nothing about this virus for a few month following the attack. Frankly, I wasn’t even aware that I had been attacked and that I was being watched online. Only after I had the chance encounter in the metro car (see first part of this series, Chance Encounters-the article below) did I make the connection: That the blank and white screen was an invasion by a virus, and that Faith’s group/intelligence service was monitoring me.

(I had reserved a car online at Reagan National Airport to head to Pennsylvania with my father. The rental company had sent me a confirmation to my Yahoo address. The confirmation included the date and time for the return of the car. Once I returned the vehicle, I boarded a metro car...where the chance encounter took place. That encounter indicated to me that the blank and white page that had popped up when I checked out the Saudi web site was a virus that gave Faith and his cell the ability to monitor my online activities.)

In the meanwhile I had sent the "support" email author (Faith, probably or possibly his handler) my standard communication to contact my attorneys regarding the newsletter and its domain.

What Faith’s cell did, according to the government employee, is an extension of electronic eavesdropping. This can be a very sophisticated type of attack, recounted the young technician I hired, which told him that Faith and a circle of lay people could not be alone; that a very knowledgeable technician was involved.


A LISTENING DEVICE: THE NEED FOR THE MOLE.

In effect, even after I had cleaned up my computer, that same intelligence service could possibly still be eavesdropping using one or more of my laptops, to which Faith had physical access, when I would go to the bathroom at Starbucks where we did our work together. And, inside a piece of furniture that Faith gave me.

To electronically eavesdrop on you after all, said one knowledgeable acquaintance, they needed to gain access to your place. That could be risky. That’s where their mole–Faith-- came in handy. Have Faith install the listening device; better yet, have Faith give you a piece of furniture, or through access to your laptops at Starbucks while you’re in the bathroom, implant the bug.

All of this would not have mattered, since I don’t have anything to hide. Being a defense lawyer, I act defensively–by training. Obviously, after this sleazy treachery, I’ll be acting even more defensively. Besides, as you may have noted, I was most offended by the invasion of my privacy, not particularly by the fact that a foreign intelligence service has an interest in me. Not to mention (again) the treachery of a friend. “ Faith’s an asshole,” said Andrew, an old friend. “You’d need to forgive him,” said another who is religious.

So now you see why the Pennsylvania friends greeted the piece of furniture and the laptop first, and greeted me second.


THE MENU

For the Pennsylvania friends, I made hommus, and baked fresh pita bread on a cast iron skillet. Tomatoes. Olive oil. Hot cayenne pepper. For drink: a mix of black and green teas flavored with cinnamon and cardamon; then Arabic coffee using Italian roast from Starbucks.


WHAT WERE THEY REALLY AFTER?

A friend, perceptively commented, “What a strange thing! What were they after? Have you asked your former CIA friends? I mean to use these ugly guys for chance encounters instead of gorgeous women? Odd.

Obviously he had not read the first part of this article (Chance Encounters, March 19, 2006--below) where I and my helpers had deduced that Faith’s organized group didn’t include attractive women, or have access to these.


Former CIA 1:

One former CIA said that intelligence services are into the dirty business of collecting information about people, any information about people of interest, and into blackmailing these. I protested: I’m a lawyer, going nowhere but here. No, you’re not, he retorted. Political appointments are a-dime-a-dozen here and in Lebanon. Who knows?

--But what can they have on me that could hurt me?

--Anything. These are low life, including your friend Faith. All intelligence services and their moles are. Faith tapes your conversations; his intelligence service doctors the tapes; then anything you “say” about a Lebanese leader or an American or a Saudi--his intelligence service would use it for blackmail if the opportunity arises.

--But I say most everything on the pages of the newsletter, anyway. I tell it to whoever asks, anywhere–in restaurants, in cafeterias...

--No one’s ever said that intelligence service operatives are geniuses. They’re sleazy bottom feeders. Geniuses they’re not.

They’re certainly not friends, I said to myself, thinking of Faith.


FORMER CIA 2:

--Israel, and those right-wing working on its behalf in this country, want the United States to wage war on Iran, to do the job for Israel as we did when we invaded Iraq.

--You’re being too kind to the non-Israel-centric oil and defense imperials.

--Maybe I am. In your newsletter, you’ve come off at times anti-Iranian. I know you’re not, not necessarily. Your approach is geo-strategic. You think the left needs a dose of realism in its approach to international relations, a modicum of a balance of power perspective. Besides, the Iraq episode has united the left and the genuine conservatives--to be distinguished from the the con-artists parading as conservatives, the so-called neo-cons. The true conservatives–the generals, the old guard Republicans...these, for different reasons, are as offended by the Iraq adventure as the left.

When we invaded we disturbed the balance of power in the region. By eliminating the Hussein government, we eliminated the balancer of Iranian power. Faith’s guys–the Jewish right wing-- in their chance encounters, were testing the water with you to see if they can establish an anti-Iranian alliance so to speak with a “Saudi” publication.

--They’re nuts. SaudiPolitics is not a Saudi publication nor does it have anything to do with the Saudis. Period.

--That’s not the point. It’s bound to be read by the Saudis and some among them might adopt some of the ideas in it. Besides, you have an Arab and Arab-American background, unlike those among your co-religionists who lived through the civil war in Lebanon. So, in essence, you carry more credibility than many others.

--But why would I compromise the independence of the newsletter? For a bunch of harmful right-wing fascists? And why would the Saudis need these or the Israelis? They have the Brits, the French, the Indians, the Pakistanis, and a lot of Arab security people at their disposal. I’m willing to explain what I think about events, even to the right wing fascists, Jewish and others. But to break into my computer, possibly bug my place (we’ll see), and use a friend!

--This says more about your talent at selecting friends. From your description, Faith sounds like the insecure and jealous type. And an ethnic right wing. These are very dangerous. You’ve learned your lesson.

(I’m too old for this. Besides, this old spy is harsh.) He continued:

--Put this behind you. Get to your next article. Keep all around you posted about all that happens. Make sure they know what’s going on and who’s contacting you.

Spooky.