…from beneath the crooked bough, witness 230 years of brutal tyranny by the al Khalifas come to an end

Expose London’s arms trade on 29th September
29 August, 2012

2 ½ hours on your bike. 9 arms companies. (Or 1 hour on foot and 3 arms companies!)

The global arms trade is on our doorstep. Conflict, repression and destruction around the world are fuelled by the weapons made in the UK. One year before one of the world’s largest arms fairs is due to take place to London, we want to expose the arms companies and show that wherever they operate there is opposition.

So, in one afternoon we’re going to visit nine of them! Anonymous buildings in Central London will be cordoned off with hazard tape and giant signs erected showing the real business that goes on.

Finmeccanica, just one of the companies we plan to highlight, has sold attack helicopters to Turkey for use against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), military helicopters to Algeria for “battlefield and internal security requirements”, a border control and security system to Libya, drones to Pakistan, armoured vehicles to Oman. Others we will visit have sold weapons which were used to aid repression in Bahrain, and regularly supply one of the most repressive regimes in the world, Saudi Arabia.

Join us as we show that This is NOT OK.

If you’re on foot, meet at:

2pm at MBDA, 11 Strand, WC2N 5RJ (nearest tube: Charing Cross)
then proceed to
2.45pm at BAE Systems, 6 Carlton Gardens, SW1Y 5AD

If you’re on a bike, be at MBDA, 11 Strand, WC2N 5RJ, promptly at 2pm to join the critical mass cycle that will target nine arms company sites in just 2 ½ hours!

…more

Top gun: Saudi, India deals push US arms sales to record $66 billion
by Uttara Choudhury – 29 August, 2012 – First-Post World

New York: The Congressional Research Service’s annual survey of global arms sales shows the US to be the world’s top arms merchant. The US sold $66.3 billion of weapons overseas in 2011, cornering nearly 78 percent of all global arms sales, which rose to $85.3 billion in 2011.

Predictably, concerns about chest-thumping Iran fueled arms sales to the Middle East especially to pro-US allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudis, who have never really got along with Iran and sparred over Islamic leadership in the Persian Gulf, bought 84 advanced F-15 fighters from the US. Territorial disputes between Iran and the United Arab Emirates over three islands in the Gulf have flared recently, with Washington voicing support for the United Arab Emirates’ stance.

But many of the weapons are also being purchased by Asian countries like India and Taiwan which are on a tear to modernize their armies, said the annual report, written for Congress by Richard Grimmett and Paul Kerr. The report noted that India has begun to modernize its old, Soviet-era military equipment and technology and diversify its weapons supply base.

Saudi Arabia was the biggest arms buyer among developing countries, concluding $33.7 billion in weapons deals in 2011, followed by India with purchases of $6.9 billion and the United Arab Emirates with $4.5 billion. Washington also sold around $2 billion worth of antimissile batteries to Taiwan; a deal that stung the Chinese and caused tension during a diplomatic Chinese military visit last July.

“In 2011, the US led in arms transfer agreements worldwide, making agreements valued at $66.3 billion (77.7% of all such agreements), an extraordinary increase from $21.4 billion in 2010. The US worldwide agreements total in 2011 is the largest for a single year in the history of the US arms export program,” noted the report prepared for the US Congress.

While Washington posted “a clear outlier figure” and remained the world’s leading arms supplier, nearly all other major suppliers, except France, saw declines in 2011. Russia, the world’s number two arms dealer got a bloody nose as sales nearly halved to $4.8 billion in 2011. Things were much happier for France which signed arms sales valued at $4.4 billion in 2011, up from $1.8 billion a year earlier. …more

Here is an interesting piece from The Israeli Times. While its main purpose is clearly vilification of Iran and fear mongering, it also points to the ‘vulnerability’ of the Saudi Oil Supply and reliance there on. The vulnerability is in the foolish reliance on a single point of failure in the Western oil supply-chain. This model of greed uses the intersection of cheap oil and the cost to secure it. The weapons profiteers enjoy a windfall as the US Weapons Sales hit records in the necessity to protect it. Phlipn.

How Iran could get Carte Blanche in the Middle East — without a nuclear weapon
By Mitch Ginsburg – 28 August, 2012 – The Times of Israel

A cyber attack earlier this month highlighted the vulnerability of the Saudi oil industry, on which so much of the world depends. A recent simulation showed that a full-scale terror attack at Abqaiq, where Saudi Arabia processes six million barrels of oil a day, would hugely bolster Iran and bring economic ruin to parts of the world.

Saudi Aramco, a corporation worth hundreds of billions of dollars and the world’s largest producer of oil, came under cyber attack on August 15. A sophisticated malware weapon destroyed 30,000 of the company’s computers.

In a message on an online bulletin board the attackers called themselves the “Cutting Sword of Justice,” a group unknown to cyber security experts, and said that the attack was retribution for “oppressive measures” taken by Saudi Arabia in the Middle East. The group specifically cited Saudi involvement in Syria and Bahrain — two countries where the Saudi government has reportedly aided Sunni factions in their struggle with the Alawite regime and the Shiite majority, respectively.

Officials at Saudi Aramco said this Sunday that “our core businesses of oil and gas exploration, production and distribution from the wellhead to the distribution network were unaffected and are functioning as reliably as ever,” according to Reuters. It said that the attack had come from “external sources” and that the investigation was ongoing.

This wasn’t the first time that the Saudi oil industry was targeted. Six years ago, Saudi Aramco dealt with a more direct attack. On February 24, 2006, at 3 p.m., a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the gate of its Abqaiq oil facility. A second car, loaded with 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate as well as unknown quantities of high-grade explosives, crashed through the hole made by the first car and hurtled toward the heart of the oil facility, in the desolate, parched, Shiite-majority Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia.

Abutting one of the world’s largest oil fields with proven reserves of 17 billion barrels, Abqaiq processes two thirds of all Saudi Arabian crude oil. More than six million barrels flow daily through the facility. There the gas components of the oil are stabilized and made safe, stripped of sulfur (made “sweet”), and readied for transportation.

Saudi national guardsmen and a squad from the elite Special Emergency Forces stopped the second car a mile inside the facility, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. Several guards were killed in the initial explosion. The damage to the facility was minor; the Saudi Interior Ministry said the sum total of the damage to the site was “a small fire.” Even so, the price of oil, in a market hypersensitive to risk, rose by two dollars a barrel.

Like this month’s cyber attack, the 2006 terror attack, launched by the subgroup called Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, was largely unsuccessful and caused no long-term damage. But the two strikes hinted at the vulnerability of the Saudi oil industry, on which so much of the world depends.

Earlier this year, a group of international experts at the Herzliya Conference imagined a very different scenario — a far more drastic one — in which a sophisticated attack on Abqaiq was directed by Iran and carried out from within. In the simulation, a series of explosions, along with a cyber-weapon, crippled the facility.
An illustration of Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and shipping routes (Photo credit: Courtesy: Institute for Policy and Strategy and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya)

An illustration of Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities and shipping routes (Photo credit: Courtesy: Institute for Policy and Strategy and the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya)

The results of this simulated attack, detailed here in full for the first time, were profoundly disturbing. The price of oil skyrocketed to over $200 per barrel. The House of Saud, and the territorial integrity of the kingdom, were existentially threatened. Saudi Arabia’s neighbors — Jordan, Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman — were destabilized. Developing countries that use oil for electricity were propelled into war, both civil and external.

And Iran, the world’s third-largest producer of oil, authoritatively recognized as the perpetrator of the attack, reaped the rewards, its influence growing throughout the Middle East as the demand for oil outpaced the supply, and the Shiite populations in the Gulf — increasingly unrestful throughout the Arab Spring revolutions — rose up in arms.

“The simulation showed that global over-reliance on Saudi oil and our over-reliance on Saudi stability, would give Iran, in the case of such an attack, carte blanche in the Middle East — and that’s without a nuclear weapon,” said Tommy Steiner, the author of the report and a senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. “Even small-scale meddling” — Sinai-style vandalism along the 11,092 miles of pipeline that crisscross the desert kingdom — “would be enough to significantly increase Iran’s standing.” …more

A serious bird-shot eye injury and lethal tear gas fired inside a house by the regime forces
24 August, 2012 – Al Wefaq

Police Case for Iranian Bomb Plot Based on Tainted Evidence
by Gareth Porter – 29 August, 2012 – AntiWar.com

In the three-part series “The Delhi Car Bombing: How the Police Built a False Case,” award-winning investigative journalist Gareth Porter dissects the Delhi police accusation against an Indian journalist and four Iranians of involvement in the Feb. 13 bombing of an Israeli embassy car.

The “Special Cell” of the Delhi police has identified an Iranian, Houshang Afghan Irani, as the man it believes carried out the Feb. 13 car bombing at the Israeli embassy in New Delhi that injured the wife of an embassy official. The police believe three other Iranians were also involved in the plot.

But major questions about the integrity of evidence put forward to prove the existence of an Iranian bomb plot cast doubt on that claim, which is the centerpiece of the Israeli accusation that Iran has been waging a campaign of terrorism against Israelis in as many as 20 countries.

Only Indian journalist Syed Mohammed Ahmad Kazmi has been officially charged in the case, and even the treatment of Irani and the other Iranians as suspects depends very heavily on “disclosure statements” supposedly made by Kazmi but denounced by the journalist as police fabrications.

Although the Special Cell (SC) also claims to have forensic evidence of Irani’s link to the bombing, the evidence appears to be tainted by improper police procedures.

A central problem for the SC case is that it has no eyewitness testimony for its contention that Irani planted the bomb on the Israeli embassy car.

A hotel security camera showed that Irani left the hotel the morning of the explosion wearing a black jacket. Irani had also rented a black Honda Karizma. But eyewitness Gopal Krishanan, who was driving the car that was directly behind the embassy car and thus had a clear view of the motorcycle rider when he attached the bomb to the rear of the car, said he was certain the rider had a red motorcycle and was wearing a red helmet and red jacket.

The police were convinced by his testimony. Tal Yehoshua-Koren, who was injured in the attack but was able to get to the Israeli embassy without assistance, later told investigators she thought the attacker had been riding a black motorcycle and wearing a black jacket and helmet. A senior police officer involved in the case told the Indian Express, however, that Yehoshua-Koren could not be certain of the color of the motorcycle.

The police continued to search for a red motorcycle after obtaining her statement, as was widely reported in the Indian press. Only after the SC decided that Irani was the bomber did the police switch to the position that the bomber had been riding a black motorcycle and wearing a black helmet and jacket.

Irani became a target of the investigation after the SC learned that a phone number associated with Masoud Sedaghat Zadeh, one of the three Iranians staying in a Bangkok house where an explosion occurred Feb. 14, had allegedly contacted the Indian mobile phone number being used by Irani.

The charge sheet does not include documentation for the claim that Irani’s phone had been called by that of the accused in the Bangkok explosion. And Irani’s receipts shown in the charge sheet for the moped purchased in April 2011 and for the motorcycle rented in early 2012 list Indian mobile phone numbers different from the one cited as having been contacted by Zadeh.

Irani made no effort to hide his identity in either of those transactions, so there would be no reason for him to write a false number on the receipt.

The police claim to have recovered from Irani’s hotel room seven items on which the government’s Central Forensic Science Laboratory found traces of TNT — the same explosive that the bomb affixed to the embassy car contained.

But the SC violated several police procedures in regard to that evidence, suggesting that it may have been planted by the Special Cell. …more

“Mirza Abdul-Shaheed Mirza” of Bahrain, Youngest Political Prison Ever
Local Editor – Al-Manar News

Mohsen Mohammad Sadiq Al-Arab (left) and Mirza Abdul-Shaheed Mirza (right) inside the Bahraini courtBahraini authorities extended the arrest period of the two kids “Mirza Abdul-Shaheed Mirza, 12 years, and Mohsen Mohammad Sadiq Al-Arab, who hasn’t completed his 13 years yet, after being accused of political charges.

With the detention renewal, Mirza becomes the youngest political prisoner in Bahrain and the world, sitting in the authorities prisons in the capital Manama with the child Mohammad Mohsen Sadiq Al-Arab since the twenty-one days.

Both kids were accused of political charges for participating in the demonstrations demanding reforms in the Gulf island.

The Bahraini political prisoner Mirza Abdul-Shaheed Mirza, 12 years.In addition to Mirza and Al-Arab, the Peninsula Shield-backed Bahraini security forces arrested the child Mohammad Abbas Al-Molani, 16 years, for his participation in the protests demanding freedom in Bahrain.

The Bahraini Al-Wefaq opposition group said that “this case presented a flagrant model of the escalating violence committed by the Bahraini authorities against human and child rights.”

Al-Wefaq stressed that Bahraini regime violates child rights on a daily basis through the continuous suppression against the peaceful protests in cities and villages, along with “arbitrary” arrests and issuing the verdicts which represent a model of “political persecution” and a false image of justice.

According to Al-Wefaq, “the arrest renewal against the children in Bahrain is a model of injustice provisions issued by the international community and the United Nations.”

Bahrain’s Military Is Closely Tied to the Monarch
Abdulhadi Khalaf – 28 August, 2012 – NYT Opinion

That Bahrain has been able to weather the turmoil that has brought down other authoritarian rulers in the Arab region may be explained by two characteristics in the Bahraini situation.

The first is the different position taken by the U.S. administration toward popular protests against authoritarian regimes in the Arab region. The U.S. role has been crucial in shaping the outcomes of the popular protest in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. Its active role in the militarization of the popular protests in Libya facilitated the fall of the Libyan dictator. The U.S. political and logistical support remains crucial to sustaining the Syrian opposition groups.

It is a different story in Bahrain, which also happens to be the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The Obama administration, fearful of alienating Saudi Arabia, has not offered protesters in Bahrain the level of support it has given to Arab protesters elsewhere. The resumption last May of American military supplies to the Bahraini government has hardened the regime’s intransigence.

The second feature relates to the role military and security forces have played once the protest started. In Tunisia and Egypt, the military and security forces rapidly distanced themselves from the regime, thus facilitating their rapid fall.

Unlike the rest of the Arab region, the rank and file in the Bahraini military, police and security forces consist almost entirely of foreign recruits. Most of its officers and noncommissioned officers are members of the ruling family and its allied tribes. Bahraini Shias, two-thirds of the indigenous population, are generally excluded from serving in these forces. These arrangements allow the Bahraini regime to remain confident that its military and security forces will remain loyal no matter how high the civilian casualties are. Unlike Libya and Syria, sectarian and tribal identities will not tempt soldiers in Bahrain to defect. …source

Bahrain’s Military Is Closely Tied to the Monarch
Abdulhadi Khalaf – 28 August, 2012 – NYT Opinion

That Bahrain has been able to weather the turmoil that has brought down other authoritarian rulers in the Arab region may be explained by two characteristics in the Bahraini situation.

The first is the different position taken by the U.S. administration toward popular protests against authoritarian regimes in the Arab region. The U.S. role has been crucial in shaping the outcomes of the popular protest in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. Its active role in the militarization of the popular protests in Libya facilitated the fall of the Libyan dictator. The U.S. political and logistical support remains crucial to sustaining the Syrian opposition groups.

It is a different story in Bahrain, which also happens to be the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. The Obama administration, fearful of alienating Saudi Arabia, has not offered protesters in Bahrain the level of support it has given to Arab protesters elsewhere. The resumption last May of American military supplies to the Bahraini government has hardened the regime’s intransigence.

The second feature relates to the role military and security forces have played once the protest started. In Tunisia and Egypt, the military and security forces rapidly distanced themselves from the regime, thus facilitating their rapid fall.

Unlike the rest of the Arab region, the rank and file in the Bahraini military, police and security forces consist almost entirely of foreign recruits. Most of its officers and noncommissioned officers are members of the ruling family and its allied tribes. Bahraini Shias, two-thirds of the indigenous population, are generally excluded from serving in these forces. These arrangements allow the Bahraini regime to remain confident that its military and security forces will remain loyal no matter how high the civilian casualties are. Unlike Libya and Syria, sectarian and tribal identities will not tempt soldiers in Bahrain to defect. …source

Bahrain Interview: The Life and Death of 16-Year-Old Hussam AlHaddad
29 August, 2012 – EA World View – Josh Shahryar

That future is now gone. Instead Hussam AlHaddad is in a graveyard in Muharraq, leaving everyone to wonder how a life so precious could be lost.

Shock is perhaps the first word that one hears when speaking to Hussam’s family about his death. What’s gripped them is a profound sense of helplessness at how quickly fate turned on him — on Friday, 17 August, his body was carried onto an ambulance in Muharraq, after he was hit by shotgun pellets and then allegedly kicked and beaten up on the street by more than half a dozen men.

According to authorities, Hussam was a masked “rioter”, involved in a “terror act” who put the lives and safety of Bahraini security forces at risk by throwing Molotov bombs at them. His cousin, Hussein AlHaddad, differs:

“He is the good son, you know.”

Hussam was also a hard-working student, with an average grade this year of 92%. Hussain, who is 32, painfully recounts the last conversation with his cousin about the future. “I want to do electronics or airplane engineering,” Hussam had said. It was an easy decision — several members of his extended family were engineers, and his father worked with Gulf Air.

But the violence and oppression in Bahrain had already affected him. Two years ago during Ramadan, Hussam was arrested because of a small fire in a trash can near his house. After spending a month in juvenile detention, he was freed without charge, but he knew the risk to his future if he again crossed the path of the police.

And so the story of how Hussam died, according to his family, is in stark contrast to official government accounts.

As is customary during Ramadan, the Al Haddads had gathered at a Maatam in front of his grandfather’s house on that Friday in Muharraq to pray and mourn. At about 9:30 p.m., a hungry Hussam decided to go to a cafeteria a kilometre or two away.

A few minutes before ten, Hussain’s older brother Jassim called, but he was not able to convey the message in his state of shock. He phoned again minutes later and told Hussain that riot police had attacked Hussam. Hussain drove with Hussam’s father to the area to find commotion, riot police, and an ambulance. They were told that Hussam had been shot, but he was in stable condition and had been taken to the Ministry of Interior’s hospital.

The two men drove there, but they were told that Hussam was at the military hospital. When they arrived at that facility, they were held outside the gate for an hour and fifteen minutes. In their distress, Hussain tried several times to enter, but was rebuffed each time. Finally, they were told that Hussam would be sent in 90 minutes to Salmaniya Hospital, the country’s main medical facility, where he could be seen.

The father and cousin drove back to Muharraq to wait. It was there that they saw news reports on Twitter from the Ministry of Interior of the shooting death of a teenager. Another cousin went to Salmaniya to receive the body, but was told to come in the morning. He was also informed that he would not receive a death certificate and that the body must be buried discreetly and without any mourning ceremony. …source

CrimethInc. to Debate Chris Hedges in NYC

August 16, 2012 at 3:25 am · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by pfm

– Immediately before the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, we will meet Chris Hedges in New York City for a public debate about diversity of tactics. This debate will be free and open to the public, and livestreamed for those who can’t attend.

Occupy Tactics

Violence and Legitimacy in the Occupy Movement and Beyond:
A Debate between Chris Hedges and the CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective on Tactics & Strategy, Reform & Revolution

Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 7:00 pm

Free admission

Proshansky Auditorium
Lower level, CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue (@ 34th street)
New York City, NY 10016

Not in NYC? A free livestream of the event will be available online. Link TBA.

Why a debate?

Since Occupy Wall Street took Zuccotti Park in September 2011, there has been a resurgence of social movement activity in the United States. As momentum has increased, age-old questions over tactics, strategy, and goals have returned to the fore.

What is violence? Who gets to define it? Do illegal actions have a place in our movements? This discussion never takes place in a vacuum or on a level playing field; rather, it occurs within the context of a struggle that is already in progress, where every statement has immediate ramifications for the participants. Differing tactical approaches often reflect fundamental differences in strategy and goals.

At the core of these issues is the question:
What are we fighting for and how do we get there?

This moderated debate will feature:

Chris Hedges, Journalist
Chris Hedges is an American journalist, author, and war correspondent, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and societies. He will speak to the perspectives behind his controversial article “The Cancer in Occupy” regarding black bloc tactics and anarchist participation in the Occupy movement.

B. Traven, CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective
B. Traven will support the case for a diversity of tactics in the Occupy movement and in broader anti-capitalist struggles worldwide, illustrating an anarchist critique of the status quo and a vision of social transformation. CrimethInc. has produced many books and articles, including “The Illegitimacy of Violence, the Violence of Legitimacy,” composed in part as a response to Hedges’ “The Cancer in Occupy.”

Moderated by Sujatha Fernandes, CUNY Graduate Center
Sujatha Fernandes is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of several books on urban politics and culture; the latest is “Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation” (Verso). She has written about the Occupy movement and recent global uprisings for The New York Times and The Huffington Post.

Opening remarks by Sarah Leonard, Dissent Magazine
Sarah Leonard is an editor and writer living in Brooklyn, with particular interest in Left politics and the cultural effects of technology. She is an editor of The New Inquiry and N+1, Associate Editor at Dissent magazine, and a co-editor of Occupied!: Scenes from Occupied America. …source

Juan Valdez, a land grant activist who fired the first shot during a 1967 New Mexico courthouse raid that grabbed international attention and helped spark the Chicano Movement, has died. He was 74.

Shooter in 1967 New Mexico courthouse raid dies
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS – The Seattle Times

Tierra Amarilla, N.M. — Juan Valdez, a land grant activist who fired the first shot during a 1967 New Mexico courthouse raid that grabbed international attention and helped spark the Chicano Movement, has died. He was 74.

Valdez died peacefully Saturday at his Canjilon ranch after recently suffering two heart attacks, his daughter Juanita Montoya said.

Heir to a northern New Mexico land grant, Valdez was 29 years old when he and a group of land grant advocates, led by Reies Lopez Tijerina, raided a Rio Arriba County courthouse in Tierra Amarilla. Their goal was to attempt a citizens’ arrest of then-District Attorney Alfonso Sanchez over Hispanic land rights issues.

Valdez had gotten involved with Tijerina’s group, known as Alianza Federal de Mercedes – an organization founded to help Mexican-American heirs to old Spanish land grants reclaim land that was illegally taken by white settlers and the U.S. government.

“Tijerina impressed me when he and most of the people who had walked from Albuquerque set up a camp and refused to leave,” Valdez told retired lawyer Mike Scarborough in the book “Trespassers On Our Own Land,” an oral history of the Valdez family.

During the raid, it was Valdez who shot and wounded state police officer Nick Saiz after the officer went for his pistol and refused commands by Valdez to put his hands up.

“It came down to, I shoot him or he was going to shoot me – so I pulled the trigger,” Valdez said in the book. “Lucky for both of us, he didn’t die.”

The raiders also beat a deputy and took a sheriff and reporter hostage.

After holding the courthouse for a couple of hours, the armed group fled to the mountains as the National Guard and armored tanks chased them.

Valdez was convicted of assault but was later pardoned by Gov. Bruce King.

The episode cemented Valdez and Tijerina’s legacy among activists from the Chicano Movement of the 1970s who favored more radical methods of fighting discrimination over those of the moderate Mexican American civil rights leaders a generation before.

“He loved the attention,” said Montoya, 48. “He wanted people to know our history and what happened to our land.”

Valdez is survived by his wife, Rose Valdez, and seven of his eight children. …source

Bahrain denies resignation of senior police adviser
26 August, 2012

MANAMA — Bahrain has denied reports regarding resignation of senior police adviser John Yates who was hired last year as part of reform initiatives undertaken for Bahrain’s police.

Yates is the former assistant commissioner with the London Metropolitan Police Service and his expertise was sought as part of the recommendations of the Bahrain International Commission of Inquiry to teach police forces more about human rights practices.

The Interior Ministry highlighted in a statement on Friday that recent reports concerning the resignation of John Yates are incorrect.

The ministry said that Yates’ initial six-month contract concluded on July 20 of this year. However, he remains as an important adviser to the Minister of Interior, overseeing police code of conduct and implementation of reform measures. Yates is scheduled to regularly visit the country in the coming months. …more

Saudi Oil Producer’s Computers Restored After Cyber Attack
26 August, 2012 – NYT Technology

DUBAI (Reuters) — Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil producer, has resumed operating its main internal computer networks after a virus infected about 30,000 of its workstations earlier this month, the company said Sunday.

Immediately after the Aug. 15 attack, the company announced it had cut off its electronic systems from outside access to prevent further attacks.

On Sunday, Saudi Aramco said the workstations had been cleansed of the virus and restored to service. Oil exploration and production were not affected because they operate on isolated systems, it said.

“We would like to emphasize and assure our stakeholders, customers and partners that our core businesses of oil and gas exploration, production and distribution from the wellhead to the distribution network were unaffected and are functioning as reliably as ever,” Saudi Aramco’s chief executive, Khalid al-Falih, said in a statement.

However, one of Saudi Aramco’s Web sites taken offline after the attack — www.aramco.com — remained down on Sunday. E-mails sent by Reuters to people within the company continued to bounce back.

The company said that the virus “originated from external sources,” and that an investigation into the causes of the incident and those responsible was continuing. It did not elaborate.

Information technology experts have warned that computer attacks on countries’ energy infrastructure, whether conducted by hostile governments, militant groups or private “hacktivists” to make political points, could disrupt energy supplies.

Iran, the focus of international economic sanctions focused on its oil industry over its disputed nuclear program, has been hit by several computer attacks in the last few years.

In April, a virus infected the Iranian oil ministry and national oil company networks, forcing Iran to disconnect the control systems of oil facilities including Kharg Island, which handles most of its crude exports.

Iran has attributed some of the attacks to the United States, Israel and Britain.

Current and former American officials have said that the United States built the complex Stuxnet computer worm to try to prevent Tehran from completing suspected nuclear weapons work.

An English-language posting on an online bulletin board on Aug. 15, signed by a group called the “Cutting Sword of Justice,” claimed the group was responsible for the attack and wanted to destroy the 30,000 computers at Saudi Aramco. …more

The endless war: Saudi Arabia goes on the offensive against Iran
28 August, 2012 – MercoPress – South Atlantic News Agency

Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests. Their involvement in Syria is the first battle in what is going to be a long bloody conflict that will know no frontiers or limits.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Syria’s Bashar Hafez al-Assad King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Syria’s Bashar Hafez al-Assad

Ongoing Disorders in the island kingdom of Bahrain since February of 2011 have set off alarm bells in Riyadh. The Saudis are convinced that Iran is directing the protests and fear that the problems will spill over the twenty-five kilometer long COSWAY into oil rich Al-Qatif, where the bulk of the two million Shia in the kingdom are concentrated. So far, the Saudis have not had to deal with demonstrations a serious as those in Bahrain, but success in the island kingdom could encourage the protestors to become more violent.

Protecting the oil is the first concern of the government. Oil is the sole source of the national wealth and it is managed by the state owned Saudi Aramco Corporation. The monopoly of political power by the members of the Saud family means that all of the wealth of the kingdom is their personal property. Saudi Arabia is a company country with the twenty-eight million citizens the responsibility of the Saud Family rulers.

The customary manner of dealing with a problem by the patriarchal regime is to bury it in money. King Abdullah announced at the height of the Arab Spring that he was increasing the national budget by 130 billion dollars to be spent over the coming five years. Government salaries and the minimum wage were raised. New housing and other benefits are to be provided. At the same time, he plans to expand the security forces by sixty thousand men.

While the Saudi king seeks to sooth the unrest among the general population by adding more government benefits, he will not grant any concessions to the eight percent of the population that is Shia. He takes seriously the warning by King Abdullah of Jordan back in 2004 of the danger of a Shia Crescent that would extend from the coast of Lebanon to Afghanistan. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria, and the Shia controlled government of Iraq form the links in the chain. …more

A story of no mention in the US press.

Netanyahu implicated in nuclear smuggling from U.S. — big story in Israel
by Philip Weiss – 6 July, 2012 – MondoWeiss

The Israeli press is picking up Grant Smith’s revelation from FBI documents that Benjamin Netanyahu was part of an Israeli smuggling ring that spirited nuclear triggers out of the U.S. in the 80s and 90s.

Arutz Sheva, the nationalist Israeli press:

Declassified FBI documents from a 1985-2002 investigation implicate Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in an initiative to illegally purchase United States nuclear technology for Israel’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu was allegedly helped by Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer with ties to Israeli prime ministers and U.S. presidents.

The original story was broken by Grant Smith at antiwar.com, “Netanyahu worked inside nuclear smuggling ring”:

On June 27, 2012, the FBI partially declassified and released seven additional pages [.pdf] from a 1985–2002 investigation into how a network of front companies connected to the Israeli Ministry of Defense illegally smuggled nuclear triggers out of the U.S.* The newly released FBI files detail how Richard Kelly Smyth — who was convicted of running a U.S. front company — met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel during the smuggling operation. At that time, Netanyahu worked at the Israeli node of the smuggling network, Heli Trading Company. Netanyahu, who currently serves as Israel’s prime minister, recently issued a gag order that the smuggling network’s unindicted ringleader refrain from discussing “Project Pinto.”

The Hebrew paper Ma’ariv, in translation:

According to FBI documents released by the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was involved in smuggling in the 70s from the U.S. components of Israeli nuclear program, and assisted by the businessman Arnon Milchan, who according to previous publications was a former Mossad agent.

The documents, declassified in part by the FBI after partial classification removed, describe the findings of the investigation has been performed between the years 1985 to 2002 on about how a network of front companies a U.S. security firm illegally smuggled equipment used for weapons seeds out of the U.S..
…source

Syria foreign minister accuses U.S. of stoking violence
28 August, 2012 – Agence France Presse

LONDON: Syria’s foreign minister accused the United States of being the “major player” encouraging anti-government rebels, but vowed the regime would not deploy chemical weapons in an interview published Tuesday.

Walid Muallem suggested to Britain’s Independent newspaper that the U.S. may be using Syria to curb Iran’s influence in the Middle East and that it had exaggerated Tehran’s nuclear capabilities in order to sell weapons to Gulf countries.

“We believe that the U.S. is the major player against Syria and the rest are its instruments,” he told journalist Robert Fisk.

When asked whether the U.S. was using the Syria crisis against Iran, Muallem cited a recent study by influential Washington think-tank the Brookings Institution which concluded that “if you want to contain Iran, you must start with Damascus”.

“We were told by some Western envoys at the beginning of this crisis that relations between Syria and Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas are the major elements behind this crisis,” he told Fisk.

“But no one told us why it is forbidden for Syria to have relations with Iran when most if not all the Gulf countries have very important relations with Iran.”

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon demanded an independent inquiry Monday into the killings of hundreds of civilians in the Syrian town of Daraya as world outrage mounted over the “massacre” by pro-government forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 334 bodies had now been found in Daraya after what activists described as brutal five-day onslaught of shelling, summary executions and house-to-house raids by pro-government forces.

The Sunni Muslim town of some 200,000 people is seen as a stronghold of opposition to the minority Alawite-led regime of President Bashar Assad.

Muallem accused the U.S. of assisting the rebels’ military effort by supplying them with telecommunication equipment, adding that it was supporting terrorism.

The minister played down suggestions that the Assad regime would resort to using chemical weapons if its authority was further weakened, saying the government’s “responsibility is to protect our people.”
…more

Rachel Corrie ruling ‘deeply troubling’, says her family
guardian.co.uk – 28 August 2012

Cindy and Craig, the parents of Rachel Corrie, said it was a ‘bad day for human rights’ Link to this video

The death of pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie was a “regrettable accident” for which the state of Israel was not responsible, a judge has ruled, dismissing a civil lawsuit brought by the family.

The young American had “put herself in a dangerous situation” and her death was not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army, said Judge Oded Gershon at Haifa district court.

The 62-page ruling found no fault in the internal Israeli military investigation which cleared the driver of the bulldozer which crushed Corrie to death in March 2003. The judge said the driver could not have seen the activist from the cab of the bulldozer.

Corrie could have saved herself by moving out of the zone of danger “as any reasonable person would have done”, he said. The area was a combat zone, and the US government had warned its citizens not to go there.

International activists were intent on obstructing the actions of the Israeli military and acting as human shields “to protect terrorists”.

Corrie was killed on 16 March 2003, crushed under an Israeli military bulldozer while trying to obstruct the demolition of a Palestinian home in Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border.

The lawsuit, filed by Corrie’s parents, Cindy and Craig, of Olympia, Washington state, accused the Israeli military of either unlawfully or intentionally killing Rachel or of gross negligence. The family had claimed a symbolic $1 (63p) in damages and legal expenses.

The judge said no damages were liable, but the family’s court costs would be waived.

The family was “deeply saddened and deeply troubled” by the ruling, Cindy Corrie said at a press conference after the ruling. “I believe this was a bad day, not only for our family, but for human rights, humanity, the rule of law and also for the country of Israel.”

The state had, she said, employed a “well-heeled system” to protect its soldiers and provide them with immunity. “As a family, we’ve had to push for answers, accountability and justice.”

Rachel’s sister, Sarah Corrie Simpson, said: “I believe without doubt that my sister was seen as the driver approached her.” She hoped that the driver would one day “have the courage” to tell the truth. …more

Saudi Arabia – America’s Real Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
27 August, 2012 – John Miller – The Energy Collective

As oil prices ticked above $115 per barrel last week, a White House leak revealed that President Barack Obama may dip into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), the United States’ 695 million barrel stockpile of emergency fuel supplies. The leak might have been a signal that Washington wants Gulf countries to take action to lower oil prices. It might also have been an attempt to wring the risk premium out of current prices by reassuring the market that America won’t let a potential war with Iran shut off the spigot. The one thing we can say for sure is that the announcement highlights two interrelated problems with U.S. energy policy: that every president since Ronald Reagan has used Saudi Arabia as his de facto SPR and that there exist no clear standards for when to dip onto the actual SPR. Both problems have the potential to bite us — badly.

Over the years, the United States has been surprisingly reluctant to release SPR during times of crisis, preferring instead to let Saudi Arabia handle the problem by simply increasing its production. For decades, in fact, U.S. presidents have been able to count on the Middle Eastern petro giant to pre-release oil in anticipation of times of war. For example, Riyadh flooded the market ahead of the first Gulf War and, though many do not remember, it also put extra oil on the market ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Saudi Arabia even increased its oil production after the 9/11 attacks, which badly strained U.S.-Saudi relations. Likewise, this spring, when the Obama administration was debating whether or not to release the SPR ahead of the tightening of sanctions against Iran, Saudi Arabia helpfully boosted its production above 10 million barrels per day, causing oil prices to fall more than $10 a barrel and eliminating the need for the White House to make a firm decision.

But relying on Saudi Arabia, while politically convenient, is not without risks. The most obvious is that the Saudis have come under increased pressure — both internal and external — as a result of their longstanding oil-for-security alliance with Washington. Iran has warned its fellow Gulf producer not to make up the slack resulting from American and European sanctions, threatening direct retaliation if it does. Saudi Arabia isn’t taking any chances. In recent months, it has arrested prominent Shiite dissidents — always suspected of possible ties to Iran –and doubled the number of Saudi National Guard forces in the Eastern Province, home to the vast majority its 2 million-plus Shiite citizens as well as the close to 90 percent of its oil production.

Oil markets might have taken solace in Saudi preparedness until rumors surfaced of an assassination attempt aimed at the kingdom’s intelligence chief, a move purported to be a revenge killing by Iran for similar assassinations of senior military leaders in Syria. The rumors proved to be false, but like much of the region’s murky political intrigue, it moved markets and served as a reminder that a tit-for-tat game of high level assassinations is not out of the realm of possibility. The oil implications of this unpredictability are clear: It will be hard to keep global oil markets calm in the coming weeks and months. Deaths of rulers can change dynamics overnight virtually anywhere in the region, and Israel’s defense policy remains an ever-present black swan. Saudi Arabia’s own rumored pursuit of new nuclear-style ballistic missiles from China adds an additional layer of uncertainty about a nuclear arms race in the region.

America’s ability to fall back on the Saudis is further imperiled by the inherent instability of the kingdom’s political and economic system. Saudi Arabia is going to need more and more oil revenue just to keep its population from growing restive. Riyadh-based Jadwa Investment predicts that Saudi Arabia will be forced to run budget deficits from 2014 onwards, even at a break-even price forecast of $90.70 per barrel in 2015. Other forecasts are even bleaker in the medium term, estimating the breakeven price at $110 a barrel in 2015. Either way, the kingdom’s thirst for cash is likely to mean that U.S. and Saudi interests diverge. The oil-for-security deal between the two countries has destabilized the kingdom in the past by igniting support for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and it could be used again by agents of internal opposition groups. Moreover, the recent pro-democracy upheavals in Egypt, Syria, and above all Bahrain are bound to influence U.S.-Saudi relations over time in ways that are hard to predict.

For the time being, these risks have been at least temporarily mitigated. Recent leadership successions in the senior ranks of the Saudi security apparatus (defense, interior, and intelligence) and the common interest in containing Iran has brought Saudi oil policy closer in line with White House goals — at least for now. Saudi oil shipments to the United States have been on the upswing this year — a reversal of previous policy that favored sales to China — and the kingdom, together with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, has stockpiled oil in ships off the coast of Al-Fujairah, outside the critical shipping choke point of the Strait of Hormuz, and added emergency crude oil stocks in China, Japan, South Korea, and Rotterdam. This coordination helped keep oil prices from spiking when Western countries tightened the sanctions regime against Iran’s oil industry. The extra Gulf crude was aimed not only to wean Asian and European buyers off Iranian oil but also to give the United States (or even Israel) more economic leeway for a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities in the event that diplomatic negotiations stalled out. But as more and more Iranian oil comes off the market and the specter of military action intensifies, the impact of these significant moves is wearing off. …more

Open Letter to the President of The Arab Republic of Egypt, Dr. Mohamed Morsi Isa El-Ayyat

Johannesburg, August 27, 2012

Dear Mr. President:

I write you in my capacity of The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) Acting President, to express my deep disappointment and to protest the unlawful and hostile treatment I was subjected to at Cairo’s International Airport on Sunday, August 16, 2012 by the Egyptian security forces.

I had a 7-hour layover in Cairo and was going to enter the country to see Egyptian friends before boarding my connecting flight to South Africa scheduled on the same day. I was granted an entry approval at the airport. Shortly thereafter, I was called back and asked to wait. Then, my passport and travel documents were taken by the police. I was informed afterwards that I will not be allowed into the country due to “top secret reasons.”

To no avail, I repeatedly asked about what the “top secret reasons” were, and why I was not informed of their nature even though they concerned me. I was told that it was a matter of “national security and intelligence.” I was not given the information because the security officials at the airport told me “they could not provide me with the reasons as they themselves did not have access to it.”

Upon the arrival of my Egyptian attorney, he insisted on finding out why I was considered a threat to the national security of Egypt, and how they could deny me entry after they had stamped my passport with approval.

In response, we were told that “if I insisted on not leaving voluntarily, I would be forcibly deported to Bahrain.” To further intimidate me, I was also informed that the Bahraini government had issued an arrest warrant with my name.

I am afraid that this incident is not an isolated occurrence, but one of many to date where Bahraini human rights defenders are routinely subjected by Egyptian security forces.

In April 2012 I was stopped at Cairo’s airport by security officials who attempted to deny me entry into Egypt. I was ultimately allowed in after my lawyer and your wonderful countrymen– Egyptian activists intervened.

During my ordeal on this time, a police officer candidly admitted to me that I was eventually allowed in because according to him, there were protests going on in Egypt – which is not the case this time around.

Earlier this year, my colleague and the actual president of the Bahrain Center of Human Rights, Nabeel Rajab was denied entry and returned to Bahrain by security officials at Cairo Airport. As you may know Mr. President, Mr. Rajab is currently imprisoned in Bahrain to punish him for his role as an outspoken human rights defender.

In pre-revolution Egypt, authoritarian regimes like Bahrain found a diligent ally in Egyptian intelligence as they sought hinder the movement of human rights defenders. Such regimes, and others, eagerly outsourced their harassment to former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Back then, it was always a risk for Bahraini and Arab human rights activists to travel to Egypt because of the former regime’s commitment to fellow dictatorships.

Not long ago Mr. President, you were personally on the receiving end of these arbitrary and unjust practices as a dissident. I respectfully ask you today sir as a fellow Arab: How can such blatant disregard for the law and basic human dignities continue under your watch?

As the acting president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, I write to inform you that I am gravely concerned, as a human rights defender, by the unjust and hostile treatment I was subjected to in Cairo’s airport.

Sincerely,

Maryam Abdelhadi Al-Khawaja

Acting President

Bahrain Centre for Human Rights

Iran might let diplomats visit suspected nuclear site
27 August, 2012 – By Yeganeh Torbati, Fredrik Dahl – Reuters

DUBAI/VIENNA: Iran indicated on Monday it might allow diplomats visiting Tehran for this week’s Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit to go to the Parchin military base, which U.N. nuclear experts say may have been used for nuclear-related explosives tests.

When asked about the possibility, Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh said: “Such a visit is not customary in such meetings…However at the discretion of authorities, Iran would be ready for such a visit,” the Iranian government-linked news agency Young Journalists Club reported.

The tentative offer was made just three days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) again failed to gain access to Parchin for its inspectors at a meeting with an Iranian delegation in Vienna.

Iran is hosting the NAM summit, which ends on Friday, at a time when the West is trying to isolate the Islamic Republic over suspicions it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran says its atomic programme has only peaceful aims.

Any visit to Parchin by NAM representatives would do little to calm Western concerns or those of the IAEA whose talks with Iran on the agency’s stalled probe into suspected atom bomb research in the Islamic state ended on Friday without agreement.

“Any tour the Iranians conduct for visiting NAM officials would be nothing more than a very, very bad publicity stunt,” a senior Western diplomat in Vienna told Reuters. “It is the IAEA that should have been given access to Parchin.”

The U.N. body suspects that Iran has conducted explosives tests in a steel chamber at Parchin relevant for the development of nuclear weapons, possibly a decade ago.

“RIDICULOUS”

Citing satellite pictures, Western diplomats say they suspect Iran in recent months has been cleansing the site where the experiments are believed to have taken place of any evidence of illicit nuclear activity.

The IAEA is voicing growing concern that this would hamper its investigation if it ever gained access to Parchin.

Last week diplomatic sources said Iran had covered the building believed to house the explosives chamber with a tent-like structure, fuelling suspicions about a clean-up there.

Iran says Parchin, a vast complex southeast of Tehran, is a conventional military facility and has dismissed allegations about it as “ridiculous”.

Monday’s Iranian media report did not make clear whether the NAM diplomats would be able to visit the location in Parchin which the IAEA wants to see or only other areas of the complex.

Akhoundzadeh said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to attend the NAM summit later in the week, might be able to visit Iran’s atom sites, but his spokesman denied any such plan.

“There are no such plans for a visit of that kind by the secretary-general while he is in Iran for the Non-Aligned Movement summit,” spokesman Martin Nesirky said in New York.
…more

Bahrain Rights Activist Denied Entry to Egypt
27 August, 2012 – POMED

Prominent Bahraini opposition activist, Maryam al-Khawaja, was denied entry into Egypt Sunday. Khawaja, daughter of human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja who was sentenced to life in prison for his in role in last year’s uprising, has been an outspoken critic of Bahrain’s government and has accused Arab governments of “continuing repressive security cooperation despite political change in the region,” according to Reuters. An Egyptian airport official said Khawaja’s name was on a list of people who have been denied entry at the airport, and that “The ban is based on a memorandum from the national security authorities.” Khawaja told Reuters, “We’ve been having problems with Bahraini activists getting into Egypt for years. We thought with the revolution it would change, but it hasn’t.”

Additionally, Bahrain’s International Affairs Authority (IAA) denied reports of the resignation of John Yates, Senior Policy Adviser to the Ministry of Interior. While Yates’ initial contract expired in July, the IAA stated that “he remains as an important adviser to the Minister of Interior, overseeing police code of conduct and implementation of reform measures.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Yemen, security forces report that a gunman opened fire on protesters at a sit-in in Taiz Sunday, killing one. Activist Shaher Mohammed Saeed says he heard and saw gunshots from a white pick-up truck driving past protest tents in Taiz at dawn. The protests are calling for reform related to last year’s uprising that outed Yemen’s long-time president.

Elsewhere, Kuwait’s opposition announced plans for a public gathering on Monday evening as it seeks to exert public pressure on the government to reverse its decision to consult the constitutional court on the constitutionality of the controversial electoral law that changes the constituency system and the number of candidates each voter is able to elect. Several political groups and ex-lawmakers said they would take part, hoping to see reforms that include an elected government and the growth of political parties. …source

Separate City to be Built for Saudi Women: Reductio ad absurdum
By: Colin S. Cavell, Ph.D. -August 26, 2012

On August 6, 2012, the Saudi Industrial Property Authority (MODON) issued a press release which highlighted, once again, the utter absurdity of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This writer has written previously on the rampant corruption, perversity, cruelty, and utter criminality of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and this latest insight into the workings of the House of Saud—i.e. the family that runs this gulag—defies rationality and further exposes the insanity of the rulers of this captive nation. Once again, we see how monarchy distorts the mind, corrupts the body politique, and deforms society into bizarre contortions as it attempts to reconcile its contradictions.

MODON’s press release stated that it had initiated work on planning and development of “the first industrial city being readied for women workers in the Kingdom. It will be launched in Al-Ahsa 2nd Industrial city which is located in Hofuf near Al-Ahsa airport,” reads the release. And while the press notice indicated that job opportunities would be created for “both men and women,” it was the focus on the separation of the sexes in the workplace that caught the attention, and outrage, of news agencies and observers from around the world. With an estimated costs of 500 million riyals or about $133 million, the new city is expected to create only about 5000 new jobs.

“The city,” the development authority announced “is distinguished from other industrial cities for its proximity to residential neighborhoods to facilitate the movement of women to and from the workplace. It is also characterized by allocating sections equipped for women workers in environment and working conditions consistent with the privacy of women according to Islamic guidelines and regulations.”

Nearly half of Saudi Arabia’s 28 million population and over 60 percent of the country’s university students are female and yet only about 15 percent of the entire Saudi workforce is comprised of women. Al Arabiya reports that 78 percent of the Kingdom’s university graduates are unemployed.

Reporter Homa Khaleeli of the UK-based Guardian newspaper writes that the “country already has separate schools, segregated universities (and the biggest all-female university in the world) not to mention offices, restaurants and even separate entrances for public buildings. Now industrial hubs are to be built so that women can be hidden away even further than their current dresscode of abaya, headscarf and niqab allows.” The proposed KSA development is “so extreme,” remarks Khaleeli, that “the plans bring to mind the US’s racial divide under the Jim Crow laws, ensuring ‘separate but equal’ institutions for black and white people.” Furthermore, she correctly points out, “like the legalised discrimination in the US, ‘equal’ in this context means no such thing. The female half of the adult population of Saudi Arabia is considered unfit to control their own lives. Women cannot decide whether to leave the house, whether or who to marry, whether to work or study, whether to travel, what to wear, or even whether to have major surgery—without the consent of a male guardian.”

Brett Wilkins, writing in Digital Journal, notes that the city “is being billed as a way for women to achieve a greater degree of financial independence while obeying the strict gender segregation dictated by the kingdom’s Wahhabi Muslim rulers and enforced by the dreaded mutaween morality police.” Describing KSA as being “run by the world’s most repressive religious fundamentalist monarchs,” Wilkins lays bear the facts that in Saudi Arabia, “women are subject to a strictly enforced gender apartheid. They aren’t allowed to vote or drive. They cannot be treated in hospitals or travel without written permission from their husbands or male relatives. One woman who was kidnapped and raped by seven men was sentenced to 90 lashes of the whip for being in a vehicle with an unrelated male. When she went to the media with her story, her sentence was increased to 200 lashes. In 2002, 15 girls needlessly died when the mutaween locked them inside their burning school and stopped firefighters from saving them because they weren’t ‘properly’ dressed in black robes and headscarves.”

As The Week put it, “Saudi Arabia has a problem: The Persian Gulf kingdom has an increasingly educated, increasingly unemployed female population and ultraconservative laws and customs that forbid women from mingling, much less working, with men.” In other words, this is a recipe for civil war. Being prodded by its western ally, the USA, to reconcile its deformed society to contemporary production methods and enter into modernity—at least into the nineteenth century by western standards—King Abdullah, in September of 2011, announced that by 2015 women will be able to vote and run in local elections. But don’t hold your breath, as such statements are issued from time to time by the Saudi royals only to please their American protectors and never meant to actually be implemented.

Contradiction upon contradiction is plaguing the House of Saud, and nearly every solution they propose to address their multiplicity of problems is prone to failure by the contortions of their belief system. On the one hand, the house of Saud bills itself as “the custodian of the two holy mosques” in Mecca and Medina and, hence, as the “true” guardians and interpreters of Islam. On the other hand, they defy Islam and common sense by denigrating the female half of the population as either subordinate or inferior to men, if they consider women to be human at all.

In coddling these neanderthals, the US sets itself up for payback, as can be witnessed by the current Republican Party courting Saudi Arabian financial contributions as well as campaign donations from the other oil-rich monarchs of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council in their attempt to unseat Barack Obama from the US presidency. The latest example of this disparagement of women was spewed forth from the mouth of Missouri Congressman Todd Akin who claimed just last week that women cannot become pregnant from something he calls “legitimate rape”. This comment and others prompted the following response from Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine: “the comments from Akin reinforce the perception that we in the Republican Party are unsympathetic to issues of paramount concern to women.” And, yet, the Republican Party continues to compete to see how extreme they can be in relegating American women back to the status of their Saudi counterparts: subordinated, strictly regulated, covered up, denied equal personhood, and stripped of their legal status as citizens.

Akin was only following the party line, as Republicans in the last year since becoming the majority in Congress in the 2010 midterm elections, have proposed redefining rape and thus limiting the charge to only cases described as ‘forcible rape’ in order to deny women access to health services, voted to defund Planned Parenthood (the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider and advocate), repeatedly tried to restrict women’s access to health care services, and held a Congressional House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the Obama Administration’s contraception rule in February of this year with five men and no women. Indeed, as in much of the Republican Party’s assault on women, female input into formulating their proposals is entirely absent. It is no wonder that Olympia Snowe, quoted above, is stepping down from her position as a Republican senator.
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