LEBANON: THE IDIOTS ARE BACK.

THIRD DRAFT

AN ASSASSINATION

On May 25, 2006, in Sidon in the south of Lebanon, a car bomb exploded as Mahmoud Muhammad al-Majzoub and his brother Nidal were leaving a building. Both died.

Mr. al-Majzoub, Palestinian born in Lebanon, was a liaison between Hizballah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Islamic Jihad pointed the finger at Israel. It promised retaliation deep inside that country.

Hizballah retaliated by heating up the Lebanese-Israeli border area on May 28. Of interest was the fact that the Israeli air force bombed one Palestinian military camp and one weapons' warehouse, also Palestinian, in Lebanon.


BACKGROUND

In 1975, the Lebanese Army’s intelligence service, the Deuxieme Bureau, was under American control, directly and through Jordan. These multi-cultural idiots devised a scheme to rein in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on behalf of Israel. A part of that scheme entailed sowing chaos in those parts of Lebanon which were controlled by the PLO and its Lebanese Muslim and Druze allies. They exploded car bombs, which killed hundreds of civilians. The Deuxieme Bureau and its American and Jordanian idiots thought the wholesale murder of civilians would motivate the Muslims to request (beg for, really) the stationing of Lebanese army troops in their midst and to force the expulsion of the PLO guerrillas. There’s nothing like killing your family to want the killers to protect you.

It didn’t work. The PLO was equally capable at exploding its own car bombs in Christian Lebanon, killing civilians who were "protected" by the idiots. (The idiots didn’t really care; they never tried to protect anyone.)

Worse, repeated visits by the late Kamal Jumblatt to oil-and-cash-rich Libya led to a terrific flow of money into Lebanon. Using that money, Mr. Jumblatt and the PLO bought off the Muslim members of the Lebanese army. The army disintegrated, and the idiots lost control. Misery fell upon the Lebanese ever since.


IF THERE’S SMOKE...

Al-Manar Online, an Arab newspaper (looks Palestinian but seems to have a Hizballah slant) had carried an article about a visit in early May by an Israeli “security expert” (another idiot) to Lebanon. (The article did not include a date, making it timeless. I read the article around mid-May.) The Israeli idiot came in through the Beirut airport; he used a French passport. (The French, encircled by Empire, have too joined the ranks of the idiots.)

The al-Manar article went on to report that a Lebanese idiot met the Israeli at the Hariri-family-be-rich airport, and took him to the house of Samir Geagea, head of the Christian Lebanese Forces. Many among Mr. Geagea’s men had been trained in Israel and 6000 of them live there, unable to leave. The Israeli idiot and Mr. Geagea drove off to the Shouf, to meet with Mr. Waleed Jumblatt, a Druze leader, at his “palace.” Present at that meeting were Mr. Amin Gemayyel (Christian Phalanges), a U.S. embassy representative, and an advisor to Saad al-Hariri.

(SaudiPolitics is confident that Hizballah had monitored the Israeli idiot’s movements; it can't be otherwise. Hizballah is probably the “knowledgeable source” for al-Manar’s article. The odd thing is that Hizballah, knowing what it knew, had failed to thwart the assassination.)

As for Jumblatt, the Americans and the Saudis have assigned him the role of the acrid critic of Syria, the Palestinians in Lebanon, and Hizballah. Cargo. Connecting the dots, one wonders about a possible collusion between the American wing of the Saudi foreign policy establishment and Israel, shepherded along by the United States. Is Lebanon to pay the price for this folly, for this abject mediocrity?

Two days later, the Israeli security idiot left to France where he met with another idiot, Abdul Halim Khaddam. The former Syrian Deputy President, upon (probably) being handsomely cargo-ized by the Saudis (as a favor to the Americans), had defected a few months earlier. (That means the following: He pocketed lots of cargo and moved into yet another "palace" in Paris.) He is currently allied to the Syrian Sunni Muslim Brothers in an American-Saudi idiots-sponsored front.

(Yes, Virginia, the United States is sponsoring the Muslim Brothers–the very Osama bin Laden people!)


AT JUMBLATT’S “PALACE”: A BIT OF FICTION

What happened at the meeting between the Israeli idiot and his Lebanese counterparts at Jumblatt’s “palace”? SaudiPolitics wasn’t there, but it sure is glad to use fiction to re-create the scene, allowing for ample freedom in character portrayal and development.

The Israeli idiot, in retard-like Arabic, kicks off the meeting: “Isghraeel (he means Israel) will be starting a campaign of assassinations against the terrorist Hizballah and Palestinian terrorists in Lebanon. We’re giving you heads up. Act defensively. (Meaning stay home, in the center of the house, where there are the highest number of steel-reinforced concrete walls separating you from the outside world. Add sandbags to your hole.) We will of course be using our friends the non-terrorists in Lebanon to conduct these surgical operations against the terrorists.” He continues, looking at Jumblatt, “Of course, we expect your honor to activate the non-terrorist Druze of Syria to terrorize the terrorist regime of Bashar al-Asad.”

Coffee is offered, which the Israeli idiot, thinking it may be terrorist coffee, turns down. “Terrorist Hizballah,” he continues, “should react to the assassinations, which would give us an excuse to bomb Palestinian terrorist sites in Lebanon. We do this to help you in your campaign to disarm these Palestinian-Syrian terrorists by creating Shia public pressure on Hizballah to do just that–on the way to disarming terrorist Hizballah itself.”

The Israeli idiot becomes quite emotional, and nearly loses his breath. The American idiot takes over, showing off (too) his retard-like Arabic: “Needless to say, we will take care of our friends who help out. Two millions per assassination.”

Samir Geagea and Waleed Jumblatt interject, impatient, both wanting to make a point. Then Sameer, who had killed a fair number of Christians and Druze, allows Waleed who, using Syrian-Palestinian troops in Druze uniforms and his own Druze militiamen, had killed a fair number of Christians, to speak: “You’ll pay us for assassinations; but what about when one of us is assassinated. I don’t see you pay up.”

The American idiot is fast to respond. “No, no,” he protests. “ We will pay. One million for each loss of a leader. It’s already approved by the agency. We have developed a computer-assisted sliding scale compensation schedule which factors in the age, length of service, level of violence associated with the death, and so on, of the murdered or maimed freedom lover.”

Amin Gemayyel doesn’t say anything. He’s regretting having attended the meeting at all. But a bunch of cargo had arrived at his “palace” from the U.S. embassy, which swayed him. It’s only a meeting, he figured.

“What will you tell Abdel-Halim?” Asks Amin, to say something, no more.

“I will urge him to use the American-sponsored Muslim Brothers in Syria to terrorize the terrorist regime. Sooner or later, we will have our friend King Abdallah the Second of Jordan rule over Syria and Iraq; Najaf will be his, and the Lebanese Shias will have to honor him”

Um, thinks Gemayyel. I am dealing with idiots. I am an asset for American idiots.


PROGNOSIS

SaudiPolitics would not have given the al-Manar article much attention but for Mr. Majzoub’s assassination. The rumors about visits by Israeli idiots to Lebanon and meetings with the American-Israeli-Jordanian proxy idiots had been floating about for quite a while, as had rumors about Mr. Geagea meeting with Israeli agents when he had resided in France.

Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah (Shia) had warned more than once (the last on or about May 7, 2006) that the United States had a plan to use Lebanon as a base against Syria and Iran. Obvious. The problem for the United States is that Lebanon has two cargo cults: The Hariri-led one which is paid off by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, and the Hizballah-Amal-Palestinian refugees cargo cult, whose money comes from Iran, though I suspect that Amal receives money from Saudi Arabia and the U.S., too. (That clever Berri!)

It’s unlikely these two cargo cults would change cargo preferences any time soon.

The camp of the idiots is banking on one scenario: That Amal would break ranks with Hizballah. (The Saudi idiots, to assist the American idiots, had tried to persuade Berri to do just that–see previous SaudiPolitics article, “Arab Iraq No More.”) Recent clashes between Amal and Hizballah students at the Lebanese University may have been a (timid) precursor. But Iran is cash-rich now and can afford to fund Hizballah to the tune necessary to thwart defections by Hizballah commanders to Amal. Not to mention that Russia and Syria are alert about American and Israeli activities in Lebanon. Hence perhaps a controversial shipment to Lebanon by Syria on or about May 19. Syria (and Berri) insisted the shipment was made up of food. In contrast, the U.S.-Hariri cargo cult claimed that Syria was shipping weapons to the Palestinian refugees.

It probably was food, though it wouldn’t surprise me if Syria weren’t conducting its own brand of psychological warfare. All are now, having taken a lesson from our stellar and well-read Pentagon. Arming the Palestinians, after all, probably is a contingency plan of Hizballah and should proceed fast once the Iranian-Syrian alliance determines a need for it. (I wrote this before Israel’s raid on Palestinian camps.) In short, there’s no need for shipments. The American cargo cult headed by Saad Hariri made a scandal out the Syrian shipment probably to increase the amount of that cargo (i.e., dollars) to its members and keep the U.S. interested in Lebanon.


THE PROBLEM

Strategically, the room for maneuver for the U.S. is very tight. Its idiots-operatives (or operatives-the-idiots?) are spinning their wheels just to show that they’re doing something. Unless they are beyond the level of idiots and think they are in fact doing something. The U.S. strategic alliance with Israel closes off the minds (and options) of U.S. policy-makers. Especially the minds. To repeat a running theme of this newsletter:

(1) Though the United States is militarily/technologically superior, it lacks popular appeal due mainly to the following facts:

i. It is the sponsor of Israel’s expansion into Palestinian land;

ii. It has failed to produce a Palestinian state on all of 1967 lands; and

iii. It attacked an Arab country and dismantled it. As a consequence, for the foreseeable future, the Arab street and the Arab opinion-makers, even those on the U.S. payroll, should not trust the United States.

By adopting the racist and mediocre policy of the Israeli right wing (Summary:”Arabs are inferior creatures who only understand force; they should be our servants not our equals”), the United States has found itself increasingly relying of minorities here (Kurds, Druze), alleged representatives of majorities there (the Syrian Muslim Brothers.) But none of these groups can carry the day. These groups are seen as traitors since they had turned their back on the Palestinians and on the Arab identity of Iraq.

The Bush Administration will not be able to overcome its right wing neo-con mediocre limitations. A suave American Administration, for example, would fund the left in Israel to lead that country in the sane direction of helping out in the formation of a Palestinian state on all the 1967 lands, while assuaging Israeli protectorate envy. (SaudiPolitics was first to coin the concept of “protectorate envy” to describe the feeling of jealousy by one Empire protectorate (i.e., Israel) vis-a-vis other protectorates (e.g., Saudi Arabia) and upcoming protectorates (e.g., Palestine). The insignificant U.S. Department of State would do well to create yet more employment in an office named “Protectorate Therapy Division (USPTD), ” where Israel would be First Patient.)

For the American idiots to stand a chance, the United States would have to come to terms with some basic facts:

(1) That the Palestinian national movement is here to stay, and will get stronger and will go deep underground–all over the Arab world--the longer Israel and the United States repress it; and

(2) that no Palestinian leader will succeed if she compromises over an inch of Palestinian land, wall or no wall, unilateral withdrawals or no withdrawals.

In Lebanon, the Palestinian national movement probably can muster thousands of fighters to assure its survival. These fighters have proven themselves. Their motivation is rock solid. Can Lebanon afford to see them out and about, allied to local groups? No, it can’t. Assassinating the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad is truly meaningless. It doesn’t scare anyone. Again, this is a national movement, and martyrdom is welcome by nearly all. The Palestinians, when they fight, gain the respect of all Arabs and Muslims, at levels (I suspect) that include senior decision-makers, even among those who are on the American payroll.

That Amal might split away from Hizballah would in no way establish the U.S. in Lebanon. The Lebanese army is mostly Shia and money could flow to it as Libyan money did in the late 1970s. An intra-Shia civil war, unlikely, would in no way establish the U.S. in Lebanon. You figure it.


THE SAUDIS: DOES LEBANON REALLY MATTER?

Saudi Arabia, in particular King Abdallah and Crown Prince Sultan, should be weary of seeing Lebanon sink into a civil war. In other words, the two should be alert to runaway Saudi intelligence forging its own idiotic ways in Lebanon, following those of the equally idiotic American. A civil war in Lebanon would create yet another Iraq.

It’s not enough that the Saudi Ambassador to Washington on or about May 23 should tell an Israeli reporter that the 2002 King (then Crown Prince) Abdallah’s peace initiative still was valid. More is needed.

Saudi Arabia should make it clear to its many assets in Lebanon (all those on its payroll) that a civil war in Lebanon, including intra-Shia, is not an option. Nor is a war of assassinations, which could de-stabilize a precarious government and turn Lebanon into yet another American failure a la Iraq and Afghanistan. Some government and stalemate are far better than no government and chaos.

To recall: Though the idiots may not intend to see the country slip into civil war, they can lose control as they did in the late 1970s. Lebanon should not be a laboratory for their sadistic and sophomoric strategies. Only Saudi Arabia can protect Lebanon by activating its assets there to ward off idiotic schemes.

Returning the Joulan, sponsoring a Palestinian state on all of the 1967 lands, and paying reparations to the refugees AND TO LEBANON (which has suffered the most from Israel’s wars against the Palestinians ) should be basic principles of Saudi foreign policy. Skillful advocacy of these principles should gain the Saudi leadership legitimacy at home (think Saudi public,) in the gulf (think Iranian Islamic popularity,) and in the Arab and Islamic world.

(Too, think principles.)

THE GREAT ESCAPE--UPDATED 5/17/06

Unorthodox and independent views, always!

Sixth draft

“You don’t run me; they don’t run me.” What movie?

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Update: ISRAEL AND KUWAIT: AN ALLIANCE?

The intelligence services of Israel and some Arab countries (Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other gulf countries) have been playing an increasingly pivotal role in the American Iraq policy, in good part due to the desperation of the American policy makers. Jordan seems to be doing the larger share. But Kuwait's intelligence service is weighing in significantly.

(Intelligence services in the Arab world play a hugely substantial role in these countries' politics. Why? The governments of these countries are usually engaged in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim policies which don't have the approval of those countries' people. It happens here, too, doesn't it?)

On or about May 15, Masoud Barazani, the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, after meeting the Emir of Kuwait, declared from Kuwait that Kurdistan would be willing to have an Israeli consulate.

Visits to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and other oil-and-cash-rich countries are usually money related. In other words, the intelligence services of these countries feed the leaders who visit them. That Mr. Barazani would call from Kuwait for the opening of an Israeli consulate in Kurdistan is indication that the Kuwaiti government is putting out a trial balloon as it considers an Israeli consulate in Kuwait city.

I could be wrong.

But recipients of Kuwait's largesse should be reluctant to make announcements from that country which they had not cleared with that country's government.

We'll monitor that trial balloon. Overall, though, this would be a huge success for Israel's Arab (minus the Palestinians)opening should the above interpretation prove correct.

One possibility trumps the interpretation outlined above: That the United States is using Barazani's declaration from Kuwait to set up the Islamic Republic of Iran. An old trick, really. (Remember April Glaspie?) In other words, the American overseers of Kuwait's intelligence service are hoping for a terror reaction from the Islamic Republic to the possibility of Kuwait welcoming an Israeli consulate. The goal of the overseers would be to persuade all Gulf states--including Saudi Arabia--of the need for the closest possible coordination with the U.S. to check Iranian power. An Iranian-sponsored terror act against Kuwait would go a long way into scaring the Gulf countries into the arms of the United States.

SaudiPolitics will watch as events unfurl and will keep its readers informed.

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IRAQ: THE STATE OF OUR WRETCHED PRESENCE.

We’re suffocating in Iraq.

Our jobs-and-contracts-creating Pentagon and our Abu-Ghraib-experts-in-torture intelligence services are running out of ideas. For all practical purposes, desperate, they have lost the upper hand with their regional assets. The fear of total and abject failure has thrown them into the arms of Israeli, Kuwaiti, Jordanian, Saudi, and Egyptian intelligence. These stalwarts of defeat (the Israelis bled in south Lebanon thanks to IED’s that were primitive compared to those currently being used in Iraq) are now running the Iraq show. These same stalwarts are now drafting the strategy for the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services. How does SaudiPolitics know that? Antennae, my dear, antennae. SaudiPolitics doesn’t need “intelligence.” It’s not into job-creation and pandering to Israeli, Jordanian, Saudi, and Egyptian Uncle Toms. Consider that the best predictions on Vietnam came from independent state university professors, not from such cesspools of right wing mediocrity (an oxymoron?) as the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Sadism (SAIS) .

(Georgetown wants to be mediocre, too. It wants to hire Douglas Feith. His father, I hear, has lots of dineros. As if Georgetown is lacking in mediocrity. After all, it has George Tenet. Oh boy: Feith and Tenet on the same campus!)


Where do we stand in the Land of the Two Rivers? The short answer: We have no place left to stand. We’re drowning. What follows is the longer version.

I will outline the forces at work, so to speak, and hope to show you the Pentagon’s grand scheme for a great escape...to the north.


1. THE U.S. PUPPET SHIA FACTIONS: DOUBLE AGENTS NO MORE.

These are the former Iranian agents, bought off fully and totally by the United States. They are SCIRI and Dawa, and their politico-spiritual guide, the Ayatollah Sistani. Among the ranks of these are all sorts of corporate and Pentagon sycophants, those who the imperial grab project (the Iraq project) had envisaged would run Iraq and open it to American corporations, in full.

A part of the $320 billion cost of the war and occupation has gone and continues to go to them, to fatten their faces and the faces of their U.S. corporate allies. The bastards! So clever.

Effectiveness? They’re useless. Why? It’ll kill my entire week to tell you why. Suffice it to say that Empire castrates people in the Islamic world when it pays them off. If an Arab or an Islamic leader cannot talk about occupied Palestinian and Arab lands, this leader loses her ability to appeal to her people and to her army. By getting on the payroll of the United States, the sponsor of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands, these leaders in exchange promise to ignore the subject altogether. When they ignore the subject, they are unable to draw their people and their army behind them. Consequently, they become useless “assets.” The Islamists infiltrate their armies, some times at relatively senior levels, I suspect, since the issue of occupation of Arab and Palestinian lands angers Arabs and Muslims across classes.


Not to mention that these “leaders” have been reared in Iran. Consider how the Iranians issued an invitation to Nouri al-Maliki so soon after he became Prime Minister-designate. .The message to him will be clear: You’d better not turn Iraq into an American base against Iran. You do that, and it’s your ass. Can’t blame the Iranians. After all, political Empire wanted to do exactly that: Turn Iraq into an American base against Iran.

Al-Maliki will have to obey. Muhammad Baqr al-Hakim, SCIRI’s former head, did not. Hence his transition to that greatest of all empires.


2. MUQTADHA: THE NEW ARAB NATIONALIST. BRINGING A NEW GENERATION INTO THE ANTI-COLONIAL AND ANTI-IMPERIAL STRUGGLE TO RE-UNITE IRAQ AS AN ISLAMIC ARAB STATE.

Sweeping the Shiites off their feet, charming them to no end, is the Sadrist movement. I know: Our torture-on-demand Abu-Ghraib intelligence services would like to finish Muqtadha off. Antennae. They think this is Central America. Beware: This is a new breed of Shia-led Arab nationalism, with an Islamic bent. It’s not the person. It’s the movement, stupid! Stop your moronic so-called “counter-insurgency, ” and do politics. You know what I mean. De-link. If you can’t de-link, get the f....out! For in Iraq, unlike in your Central American backyard, you’re not the only ones who can set up death squads and enslave the natives. This is not El Salvador.


(Help: can someone bring back Clinton and Gore. Please. Please. These men were smart, I swear to you. They knew how to de-link. Bill charmed the hell out of all involved and came so darn close to succeeding. For once, the Democrats had a superb foreign policy.)

Muqtadha stands for a united and strong Iraq, not the consociational patchwork devised by the geniuses at the right wing consulting firms associated with the Pentagon. Iraq is being reborn. As Feyrouz said about Lebanon in the middle of its civil war, “I answered them [that] our country is being born, anew.” The Sadrist movement is Iraq reborn. Get out of the way. If you don’t, the Iraqis will bleed you to no end. Establish non-Jordanian links to Muqtadha; help evolve a progressive policy to re-unite Iraq as one country with a socialist Arab Islamic ideology. Tell the Kurds they have to go along. Tell me I’m dumb.

Jordan, an American-Israeli base to Iran and Syria, has tried to stop Muqtadha from drawing closer to the Sunnis. It succeeded, but only briefly. When the Akariyyah mosque was blown up, Muqtadha controlled his men, though not fully. But not Badr, the American proxy. A cell phone found on one of Badr’s deceased men showed the gruesome execution of the Saudi-owned (what medium isn’t?) al-Arabiyyah’s Baghdad reporter, Atwar Bahjat, in Samarra, in the aftermath of the Askariyyah bombing. A bit of evidence that Badr was heavily involved in the wholesale murder of Arab Sunnis.


(Strangely, Jordan is now indirectly allied to those who murder Arab Sunnis wholesale, while Iran is drawing closer to some of the Sunni resistance groups who are murdering Shias wholesale.)

The Sadrist movement is allied to Iran and Syria, and has become an extension of Lebanon’s Hizballah. The leaders of these movements can talk about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Arab land. Accordingly, they dazzle Arabs and Muslims the world over. They have not been castrated by a piece of the $320 billion.

In the next battle between U.S. troops and the Sadrist Mahdi Army, expect some of the Sunnis to join in, to buttress a Shia-Sunni front in Iraq. In addition, expect a split in the Salafi camp (the Zarqawi camp) as these fellows are not all ready to accept a full alliance with the Shias. But they will stand aside to their detriment. They will lose fighters to those Arab Sunni resistance groups that join in with Mahdi. This will be especially true if the battle is meant to keep Kurdistan from seceding by becoming an American base.

As a corollary, expect Jordanian intelligence and its Iraqi Baathist allies to attempt to blow up the budding Sunni-Shia alliance.

The Sadrists’ alliance with Iran could be seen (possibly) in the recent downing of a British helicopter in Basra on or about May 7. There are some indications that the Sadrists had used a more sophisticated weapon than was usually available. Ominously for the British, the popular backlash that followed the downing seemed to indicate that the Sadrist movement has the allegiance of the Arab Shia street. It competitors, SCIRI/Badr and Dawa are on the U.S. payroll; accordingly they’ve become insignificant.

Iran had repeatedly accused Britain of sponsoring terror acts in Khozistan (al-Ahwaz) to help the secessionist movement there. Time to show the Brits their place. They seem to have forgotten that southern Iraq is not Yorkshire but a semi-tropical swamp where arrogant Anglos can easily sink. The Iraqis are not the Saudi royals who shed their manhood as soon as they are blackmailed Can’t blackmail those who’ve got nothing to lose.

The only way to counter Iran's influence within Iraq is to re-awaken the old Arab nationalism so as to split Iran's Shia agents. But Arab nationalism is all but dead, having been historically the victim of the American-Israeli alliance. The United States offered the coup de grace when it invaded Iraq. Arab government proxies of the United States will never be able to replace a nationalist movement. In contrast, the Sadrist movement, if able to accomodate a version of Sunni-inspired Arab nationalism, will be the biggest winner of all the factions and movements within Iraq. Kurdish secessionism may just be the ticket for such Shia-Sunni fusion.



3. THE MORE-OR-LESS STILL UNITED ARAB SUNNI FRONT

The Arab Sunni Islamists have taken over the Arab Sunni street. That should’ve been expected as a by-product of the invasion. Algeria had provided a preview. IEDs and suicide bombings, too, should've been expected, since Hizballah had used them to great effect in south Lebanon. One really wonders whether anyone at the Pentagon reads up. What do these people do? Pay up Rand and other moronic right wing outfits to produce mediocre studies? Or are they so enamored with numbers that they can’t read anything that has no graphs in it?


One only needed to consider the Algerian experience to conclude that the Islamists in Iraq would take over once Saddam Hussein and the Arab Baath had been eliminated. But hey, the American Christian-Jewish right wanted to kill Arabs and Muslims, come what may. This Israel-centric right had for years nursed a bunch of ugly “3Arab” academicians with narcissistic personality disorder who are incapable of empathy, though they have a passion for television appearances where their dwarf-like short stature is not revealed. These, so happy to feel power, told them that it can be done. Besides, the Israel-centric right has wanted the U.S. in the Middle East, to ease up the perceived pressure on Israel.

(Watch the Saudis pay up, as their ambassador’s best friend, the President, will not be able to control the Christian right he unleashed. The Jewish right will sway these to demand reforms in the Kingdom as a step towards more severe intervention.)

The Arab Sunni resistance highlighted the mediocrity of the Israel-centric right wing. Presently, The military operations of the Arab Sunni indicate that they’re still intent on disallowing the American puppet government from ever establishing itself. A recent bombing in Karbala (@May 7) likely was a message that the security shield of the puppet Shia state was porous, and that attacks against Sunnis would be paid for.

That the Arab Sunnis are still going after the new American puppet state can also be seen in the recent suicide bombing (@May 7) against police/army recruits in Arab Sunni Tikrit. Finally, the Arab Sunnis are still active against U.S. troops, which indicates that the “opening” towards them months ago has failed. Jordan can do so much for the United States. I suspect that Jordan’s contacts are mostly old Baathists and tribal leaders, from the old school, the modernists who would’ve been America’s natural allies. These old Baathists now have little say on the street. The American invasion had allowed for a true generational and ideological revolution. The Islamists have nearly fully taken over.


4. THE KURDS: EMPIRE’S LAST (FALTERING) HOPE

At night, while in deep sleep, the very mediocre right wing mandarins who are fighting wars with other people’s children, dream up a solid base in Iraqi Kurdistan from where Empire can unleash its campaign to change the government of Iran.

Until Empire is ready for the Iran campaign, fortress Kurdistan would have to do. It’ll be the refuge after the great escape from the rest of Iraq.

Empire is prepping that principality to play the historic role of the American base in the region. A piece of the $320 billion had gone (and continues to go) to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK–Talabani) and to the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP-Barazani). Antennae! Empire wants them united to prep the grounds for U.S. bases. So, on or about May 7, the two parties so democratically announced via the Kurdish parliament that they have merged. Yes, they did. Never mind that they had bled each other to death in the mid-1990s. If the Parliament said they had merged, then they had merged. Why argue? The U.S. ambassador to Iraq attended the ceremony to give the merger Empire’s blessing and make yet more payments, in person.

But Mr. Talabani, whose section of Kurdistan sits closest to Iran, is worried. On or about May 9, he announced that Iran was a good neighbor.

Iran of course is aware of Empire’s plans. Hence the dispatch of two Mahdi Army companies to Kirkuk. Hence possibly the suicide bombing in Tel Afar meant to dispel the notion that an Empire-sponsored successful paradigm exists for security in a multi-sectarian and multi-ethnic city. In other words, the Tel Afar bombing likely was a message to the Kurds.

Tagging along the Mahdi Army into the north was the Badr Brigade. I suspect Badr here is acting as an American proxy to balance Mahdi as an Iranian proxy. An intra-Shia civil war? It would spread like wild fire into the rest of Iraq. Should this possibility rise to the level of the real, expect Iran to neutralize Badr by neutralizing its leadership. You know what I mean. (Badr, unlike the Sadrists, is not a movement. It’s a bunch of goons for hire, America’s closest thing to yet more death squads. Not that the Mahdi Army doesn't have goons. It does.) Hence the invite to the new Prime Minister to Tehran so he can hear Iran’s concerns with his own ears. Do not turn Iraq (and Badr and Dawa’s men) into a dagger directed at Iran.


To further counter the American Kurdistan-as-an-American-base plan, Iran has been drawing close to Turkey, and using a fight against the PKK as the means. Iran and Turkey do meet regularly about border security. Iran would like to draw even closer to Turkey. And so does the U.S. The latter is holding the promise of F-16s as a lure. But Turkey has an Islamic government and a Kurdish problem that should only exacerbate if a Kurdistan-as-an-American-base is ever established.

In short, the plan for Kurdistan-as-an-American-base is rife with its own explosive tension. Turkey would need to worry about a renewal of its civil war, about Iran, about Russia, and about a popular backlash in the Arab and Islamic world, possibly in the form of a commercial boycott of its products.


Too, the United States clearly has no place in Iraq. Accepting advice from (biased) regional intelligence services will only result in the unnecessary loss of yet more American life.

Time to focus on politics, on de-linking. Anyone dares?

Who am I kidding?

If nothing else, withdrawing to Qatar, Kuwait, and other small gulf countries may be necessary and should stop the uncessary loss of American life.

CHANCE ENCOUNTERS...WITH RIGHTWING INFORMANTS

(The following account has been fictionalized to protect the identity of the good, the bad, and the very ugly.)

(Second draft)



THE FOREIGN-CONTROLLED CELL OF INFORMANTS OBTAINS MY FINGERPRINTS.

The foreign-controlled cell of right-wing informants is squeezing Arab-American me out of my legal area of practice. For quite a while now, it had conducted its subtle campaign of harassment with such expertise as to leave no traceable evidence. An Arab-American stands no chance against them.

In the latest episode, the foreign-controlled cell of right-wing informants sent me a court psychologist, a former CIA employee. He had the photocopy of a document in his hand. The document was in French. He said that he was aware that I was fluent in French.

“Can you please read it and tell me what it says?”

“Sure.”

I held the document tight, took off my glasses and started reading. The print was small and italic. I held the document tighter to bring it closer to my eyes.

“It’s an insurance document from the twenties, and it’s very long,” I said; and I went on trying to decipher what it was all about. He said that the document belonged to his deceased uncle, a once-deli owner in New York, and that he (the psychologist) was curious to know whether the document was worth any money.

I proposed to him: “I can fax it to a French lawyer who’s a friend and ask him to answer me by email; then I’ll forward his take to you.”

The foreign-sponsored right-wing informant left, promising to get me a copy. He never did. Soon after he left, having not given me the photocopy he had, that a revelation hit me: He got my finger prints! I knew enough about him as a right-wing ethnic to know that he would be a prime candidate for the cell.


WHAT THEY SAID

What’s great about D.C. is that it has former employees and experts from so many agencies. I went to a few of them for an explanation.

Two said that the foreign-controlled informant (the psychologist with the French document) wanted to get my fingerprints for his Israeli handler to complete my file. They both hedged this by saying that there was a possibility that he wanted to know whether in fact I spoke French. But both agreed that the latter explanation was unlikely.

A third said that the handler wanted to know what French connections I had, if any. The problem with this explanation (a problem he conceded) was that the psychologist-informant never came back with a copy of the document for me to fax to my friend the French lawyer. Nor did he give me the photocopy he had, which would’ve made sense had he been after my surmised French connections. (Too late if he brings the copy after the posting of this article.)


THE LADY WITH THE CAT

“That tips the balance in favor of the fingerprints theory; They’re completing your file, always,” commented a lady who is one of the sharpest people I know. This lady zooms in on issues like a hawk. (She had warned me about Faith a long time ago and asked me not to bring him to any event which I knew she would be attending.)

“But this fellow is former CIA. Could he be doing this-–securing my finger prints--for his former employer?” I asked.

“The CIA can get your fingerprints from your passport application. Besides, they have their way of contacting you should they really want to. You’re surrounded by former Arabist CIA’s. It’s the foreign-controlled spy cell. The foreign spy cell has lost Faith; it also has lost the Trojan virus Faith had sent you; now it’s trying to use whatever connections it has with you to continue collecting information on you. I hate to say this: but these right-wing Jewish extremists could hurt you, if only because they may have a nutcase among them.”

“It concerns me, too. Because they do in fact have a nutcase. The more I’ve reflected on this the more I’ve seen that the one man who I suspect is heading this campaign of harassment is mentally quite disturbed. He’s the complainer, the one who has no idea what reciprocity means–a “symptom” to some professionals of a serious mental disturbance. In the early 1980's a Jewish extremist placed a bomb at the Los Angeles office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) which killed Alex Odeh, ADC’s Regional Representative. They caught the guy.”


“Watch your back.”

I wanted to ignore this last warning.

“What I don’t understand is their pestering behavior. It’s pathological. Their under-siege, ghetto-like incestuous behavior is eminently revolting. Not to mention that they are squeezing me out of my practice, without leaving behind any tangible evidence of harassment. ”

“Not surprising. All this spying means that they are trained by a professional handler, and the first thing he or she had trained them for probably was how not to leave traces.” She wasn’t going to let me put it my bit; not yet. She continued: “These foreign-controlled informants live in and always spin their own consensus. That they’ve accepted to be handled by a foreign intelligence service means that they think there’s a higher purpose to their life–-to make the world safer for Israel.”

“How about sex? Have they given up on that?”

She laughed.

“It’s illogical,” I said. “ Since 1948, life has become way less safe for everyone in that neighborhood because of the Israelis’ refusal to strike a historic agreement with the Palestinians, and to treat them as equals not as slaves. Even the destruction of Lebanon is directly related to that. Do they really think that the Palestinians and other Arabs (the people, not their patsy governments) will ever accept a raw deal, one where they are made to accept the status of slaves? Look,” I continued, “there’s one thing I’m good at in politics and that’s reading the opposition. If you only knew where I believe the Arab opposition is heading, motivated in good part by Israel’s greed. Where it’s heading is not pretty. But you don’t care much about the Middle East. So I’ll save you the trouble.”


“You’re right. I don’t care much about that cesspool. I agree with you about the illogic nature of that foreign-controlled spy cell. But no one’s ever said that a consensus (theirs or any) produces smart results. Besides, they’re making money on war, having become an extension of the U.S. military. So war is advantageous. What else is there in Israel?”

Her cat came up to me and made its way to the area between the couch and my back, distributing his weight mostly on the couch.

“I have little patience for people with no class," I said with disgust in my voice, careful not to make a sudden move. “ I mean most Arab thinkers believe the Palestinians have been emulating the historic Zionist movement lock, stock, and barrel. But the Palestinians have class. They’ve never bothered me. They’ve never spied on me. They’ve never invaded my privacy by sending me a Trojan virus. They’ve never taped telephone conversations and doctored them. Never sought out my fingerprints using treachery. Never used a “friend” as informant against me. Man!”

Carefully, I reached for the tea she had made. I continued: “A number of these guys have security clearances, I suspect. Aren’t they worried that informing for a foreign intelligence service would jeopardize their clearance? Take the former CIA psychologist with the French document. Shouldn’t he be worried that he is jeopardizing the possibility of returning to the agency some day for a cushy job?”

“You’re making a huge assumption–-that our government agencies care. Not to mention the fear they would have to tread on those grounds. An equally huge assumption: You think the right-wing psychologist-informant would want to return to the agency. Think again. Maybe he doesn’t want to return. Maybe he had been fired from the agency. Maybe he was let go because he connected with suspected foreign agents. You’d never know the answer.”

“What should I do?”

“You have to deal with them, we know that. Write up the fullest account you can, and include all the names. Distribute the account to all those you’ve told about this.”

“And socially? I’m stuck with these informants because of work. I’m aware their campaign of harassment is in part meant to drive me out of the practice.”

“Um...Here's what you can do. . .”