Middle East

Trump Administration Launches Last-Ditch Effort To Halt Anti-Saudi Bills

November 29, 2018 Bryant Harris, Al-monitor.com Educate! Electoral Politics, Middle East, Trump Administration

Senior officials from the Donald Trump administration are set to brief the Senate on Wednesday in a last-minute effort to dissuade lawmakers from voting to end US support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis will brief senators amid unprecedented bipartisan backlash against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his alleged involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the looming famine in Yemen. The briefing is the administration’s last chance to convince lawmakers to vote against an expedited resolution ending US support for the Yemen war. The effort by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to do so earlier this year failed 55-44.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Arrives In Tunisia Amid Protests Against Him

November 28, 2018 Tarek Amara and Ulf Laessing, Reuters.com Resist! Middle East, Protests, Ruling Class, Tunisia

TUNIS (Reuters) - Hundreds of Tunisians staged the first protests of the Arab world against Saudi Arabia’s crown prince as he arrived on a visit on Tuesday, denouncing him as a murderer involved in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. People chant slogans and hold banners as they take part in a protest, opposing the visit of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Tunis, Tunisia, November 27, 2018. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souiss. The protests were a rare occurrence for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler who faces no overt criticism at home and who received lavish receptions earlier in his tour in visits to Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

Trump Reversing US Policy Allowing Israel’s Seizure Of Golan Heights

November 26, 2018 By Eric Margolis, Ericmargolis.com Educate! Israel, Middle East, Policy, Trump Administration

Hardly anyone noticed. The Trump administration quietly changed America’s long-held position on Syria’s strategic Golan Heights while attention was focused on the raucous political carnival in Washington. Though barely noticed, the policy change had enormous importance and will lead the United States into a lot of future Mideast misery. The Golan Heights is a volcanic plateau that abuts Syria, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. The plateau rises abruptly from the plain of Galilee, providing dominance of the entire region. To the north, Mt Hermon rises to over 9,000 feet (2,814 meters); the plateau slopes down at its southern extremity. Golan provides the headwaters of the Jordan River and 15-20% of Israel’s water from its snow-capped north.

The Tunisian Inspiration: Countering Authoritarianism With Social Justice Unionism

November 24, 2018 Shawna Bader-Blau, Unionist.com Strategize! Class Struggle, Middle East, Tunisia, Unions

Looking around the world today, it may seem bleak: crackdowns on civil liberties and worker rights are happening everywhere: Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt, Hungary, Turkey, the United States and elsewhere. Yet whenever and wherever basic rights are under attack, there always will be people resisting. The question for unions is: Will the labor movement be a part of that resistance—or not? In Tunisia, unions answered with a resounding, “Yes!”

Global War To Infinity And Beyond

November 22, 2018 By Danny Sjursen, Tomdispatch.com Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Middle East, US military

American militarism has gone off the rails -- and this middling career officer should have seen it coming. Earlier in this century, the U.S. military not surprisingly focused on counterinsurgency as it faced various indecisive and seemingly unending wars across the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa. Back in 2008, when I was still a captain newly returned from Iraq and studying at Fort Knox, Kentucky, our training scenarios generally focused on urban combat and what were called security and stabilization missions. We’d plan to assault some notional city center, destroy the enemy fighters there, and then transition to pacification and “humanitarian” operations. Of course, no one then asked about the dubious efficacy of “regime change” and “nation building,” the two activities in which our country had been so regularly engaged.

Syria – Back In The Arab Fold

November 21, 2018 Staff, Moonofalabama.org Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Middle East, Syria, US Imperialism

First signs that this was going to happen appeared a few month ago when a Kuwaiti TV personality spoke about the pleasure of visiting an again peaceful Damascus. In June the Foreign Affairs Minister of UAE called the expulsion of Syria from the Arab league a "mistake". In an interview with a Kuwaiti paper Assad said that he had reached "major understanding" with Arab states. The Saudis though are not yet welcome back in Damascus. They were one of the largest financiers of the Jihadis and will have to pay an equally large price to come back into good standing. Negotiations are ongoing. A formal reentry of Syria into the Arab League can not be far away.

Yemeni War Deaths Underestimated By Five To One

November 12, 2018 Alisdare Hickson, Intrepidreport.com Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Middle East, Wars and Militarism, Yemen

In April, I made new estimates of the death toll in America’s post-2001 wars in a three-part Intrepid Report series I estimated that these wars have now killed several million people. I explained that widely reported but much lower estimates of the numbers of combatants and civilians killed were likely to be only one fifth to one twentieth of the true numbers of people killed in U.S. war zones. Now one of the NGOs responsible for understating war deaths in Yemen has acknowledged that it was underestimating them by at least five to one, as I suggested in my report. One of the sources I examined for my report was a U.K.-based NGO named ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project), which has compiled counts of war deaths in Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

Saudi Arabia Has To Be Stopped And This Time It May Get Stopped

November 8, 2018 By Andre Vltchek, Countercurrents.org Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Middle East, Saudi Arabia

In the eyes of many in the West, it crossed them not because it has been brutally killing tens of thousands of innocent people in Yemen, not even because it keeps sponsoring terrorists in Syria, (and in fact all over the world), often on behalf of the West. And not even because it is trying to turn its neighboring country, Qatar, from a peninsula into an island. The crimes against humanity committed by Saudi Arabia are piling up, but the hermit kingdom (it is so hermit that it does not even issue tourist visas, in order to avoid scrutiny) is not facing any sanctions or embargos, with some exceptions like Germany. These are some of the most barbaric crimes committed in modern history, anywhere and by anyone.

The Khashoggi Affair And The Future Of Saudi Arabia

October 29, 2018 Daniel Lazare, Consortiumnews.com Educate! Middle East, Saudi Arabia, US Imperialism

If Donald Trump seems at a loss about how to respond to the Jamal Khashoggi murder, it may not be because he’s worried about his Saudi business investments or any of the other things that Democrats like to bring up to avoid talking about more serious topics. Rather, it’s likely because Trump may be facing one of the biggest U.S. foreign-policy crises since the overthrow of the shah in 1979. At that time the U.S. counted on support from Arab Gulf states no less frightened by the Iranian revolution. That included Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, oil emirates Kuwait and Qatar, plus the Saudis themselves. But if the Saudi power structure were ever to crumble in the wake of the Khashoggi scandal, there would likely be chaos because there is no alternative to replace it.

Assassination As A Criminal Tool By The Powerful Against The Weak And Oppressed

October 25, 2018 Raouf J. Halaby, Counterpunch.org Educate! Assassination, Class Struggle, Middle East, Repression

Only recently a spat between Saudi Arabia and Canada made headlines as a result of the Saudi Government’s beheading of a Myanmar guest worker. After the public barbaric and gruesome decapitation, the corpse was crucified on a horizontal post with the truncated head slung in a bag adjacent to the victim’s mutilated corpse. This is the 21st century, and these are Donald Trump’s BFFs. I suppose that investing $110 billion in lethal weapons, the purchase of Trump apartments, and real estate deals by Saudis flush with cash exonerates Saudi Arabia’s cold blooded murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the thousands of Saudis and Yemeni dead.

Anniversary Of Gaddafi’s Death And The Current Situation In Libya

October 23, 2018 Yuriy Zinin, Journal-neo.org Educate! Libya, Middle East, United Nations

The seventh anniversary of the killing of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on October 20, 2011 provides us with an opportunity to reassess those dramatic events which caused a major step backwards in the country’s development. With the fall of its leader, the country’s power hierarchy collapsed, leading to the disintegration of both government authorities and the armed forces. The “triumph of the February 17th Revolution and the fall of the dictatorship” was initially greeted with euphoria, but this mood was not enough to prevent the country from falling apart. The victors, who had seized power with the support of NATO and an unlikely coalition of various armed groups, were unable to prevent the country’s descent into chaos.

Assassins Without Borders

October 20, 2018 By John Feffer, Fpif.org Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Middle East, Saudi Arabia

Russia, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia are the latest members of a select international club. Assassins Without Borders has roots that go back, in the modern era at least, to the policies of the Soviet Union, Chile, Israel, Bulgaria, and the United States. All of these countries share a single trait. They were willing to defy international law in order to assassinate their critics and opponents in other countries. No fair assessment of evidence. No due process. Just rub them out at a distance. Like Saudi Arabia had done — reportedly — to one of its domestic critics. The Saudi regime had been unhappy about journalist Jamal Khashoggi for some time.

Saudi Royals Considering Replacement For Mohammad bin Salman

October 20, 2018 ZeroHedge, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Middle East, Ruling Class, Saudi Arabia

The major French daily Le Figaro on Thursday published a bombshell story which reports the Saudi royal family is actively considering a replacement to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) as next in line to succeed his father King Salman as the kingdom finds itself under the greatest international pressure and scrutiny it’s faced in its modern history over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — widely believed to have been killed on orders of MbS himself. The Li Figaro report’s unnamed diplomatic source says the Allegiance Council, which is historically the body responsible for approving the order of succession to the throne, is currently meeting in secret...

Freedom Rider: Jamal Khashoggi And U.S. Hypocrisy

October 18, 2018 Margaret Kimberley, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Middle East, US Imperialism

The disappearance and presumed murder of Jamal Khashoggi puts the corrupt relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States in high relief. The two countries have been partners in crime over many years. Together they used jihadist proxies to make wars in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria that furthered U.S. interests. The brutal Saudi attack on neighboring Yemen could not happen without U.S. diplomatic and logistical support. The Donald Trump presidency has brought the two even closer. The relationship is now a true love affair complete with personal dealings between Saudi royals and the Trumps. Khashoggi was a member of a prominent Saudi family with strong ties to the royal house. His uncle, Adnan Khashoggi, was an arms dealer involved in the Iran-Contra and BCCI scandals.

Coverup Deal Will Blame Khashoggi Death On Extreme Torture

October 17, 2018 Staff, Moonofalabama.org Educate! Middle East, US Imperialism

One might expand on that fairytale: "The Saudi general who allegedly botched the interrogation of Jamal Khashoggi mysteriously died in a Saudi air force plane crash on the same day the coverup story was floated." But that would probably take it too far. The floated story will of course not be believed. A deadly interrogation - extreme torture - in the Saudi consulate is not plausible. One does not need to fly in 15 operators, including a specialist for autopsies, to twist someone's arms and ask a few questions. The intent was either to kidnap the guy or to outright kill him. The trial ballon seems to come from U.S. sources, not from the Saudis. Trump yesterday spoke of "rogue killers" who may have caused the incident. No one near Mohammad bin Salman dares to go rogue.

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