Staying calm while the world goes crazy

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Oman, my current location, is an oasis of calm in a region that seems to be convulsing with violence. Bombs by Sunni extremists and mass killings by security services in Pakistan trigger a new form of protests - refusing to bury the dead; Syria each day a horror story; Iraq still hit by daily bombings and protests. 

Further away in Mali a war with France against ‘terrorists’ is underway, with Britain in a supporting role; in Algeria militants seize hundreds at an oil installation in retaliation against the French. Weapon stockpiles looted from Libya after the fall of Qaddafi are now put to deadly use.  

The Muslim world is in a process of violent and revolutionary change. America under Obama is like America under Clinton – reluctant to engage in conflicts in far flung places after a decade of wars. So Britain and France step into the breach. France is gung ho after staying out of Iraq and playing a small part in Afghanistan. But they have been humiliated 'Black Hawk Down' style in their botched rescue of a hostage in Somalia. It is truly extraordinary, exactly 20 years after Bill Clinton got burnt with a simliar operation to hear that French forces met with 'unexpected resistance' in Somalia.  Meanwhile the Mali escapade already looks like it could escalate into something much more difficult. France would probably like to intervene in Syria, its former colony, but Russia stands in the way.

Meanwhile life here seems to go serenely on. Even when locals look at me strangely, I don’t detect hostility. But perhaps under the surface there is something there. Clients of the West like Jordan and Oman have to be nervous. That role of being stuck between big players is familiar to both – Oman between Saudi Arabia and Iran; Jordan between Israel and Egypt. If you don’t play it right, you end up like Lebanon or Syria. 

Oman is what a friend called the Switzerland of the Middle East – it remains resolutely neutral and stays friendly with all its neighbours. It’s a small country and it pays not to take sides. Perhaps this commonality is partly why there are so many Palestinians and Jordanians here – but may be more because here there are paying jobs and prospects and in Jordan there aren’t. 

A well connected Palestinian from Jordan living here told me that one in three Jordanian men were informers to the security services. I wonder what the proportion is here in the Sultanate? It’s not an accident that taxi drivers’ licence plates belong to the Royal Omani Police. And it may explain why cabbies are often so curious.

Innocence of Muslims - a Psy-Op 'October Surprise'?

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A number of bloggers and commentators have suggested that the makers of the anti-Muslim film, Innocence of Muslims, could be involved in a Psychological Operation. The film-maker was initially identified as an Israeli-American property developer and then later described as a Coptic Christian. If you wanted to rile up conservative Islamic forces worldwide and spark conflict and violence in the Middle East, having an inflammatory film made by an Israeli / Coptic Christian (delete as appropriate) is the way to do it. The fact that an election is approaching in the USA while Israel's prime minister is doing everything he can to get Romney elected and President Obama out, so America attacks Iran, and you have the makings of the 'October Surprise' - that is an international crisis that destroys the incumbent's re-election campaign. Of course this is all rather neat and so, knowing that real life is rarely that neat, one must be careful at jumping to conclusions. However there is something remarkable about the timing of the uproar over this film, given the international context and immediate effect it has had.
Of course there is a lot of debate over who would orchestrate this, and this is where the different ideological bent of bloggers comes into play. Israel? CIA? Bilderberg-Globalist Elite? It all depends who you read...

I enjoyed this comment which is cynical but compelling in its acerbic analysis/conjecture:

Yes, the poorly scripted psyop involving a poorly scripted 13 minute video of spewing hate is falling apart at the seams. Apparently they have to fix the fixed narrative yet again. They want everyone to know that Jews weren’t responsible and the state of Israel had nothing to do with it. Go figure. Obama is sending in the drones to attack various targets in retaliation for this “surprise” attack that now appears wasn’t a surprise after all. To add insult to injury, President Obama praised the Libyan security forces for their efforts to protect our ambassador during the attack. Those are the same forces that reportedly moved Ambassador Stevens to a less secure location and then told the mob where they could find him.

Sam Klein, who has been quoted as saying he helped make the crappy 13 minute film school student garbage, is now claiming that Sam Bacile isn’t Jewish or Israeli and that his name isn’t even Sam Bacile. He claims he helped with the film not ever knowing the real identity of the film maker and of course Jeffrey Goldberg at theAtlantic “reports” these facts uncritically. “Klein told me that Bacile, the producer of the film, is not Israeli, and most likely not Jewish, as has been reported, and that the name is, in fact, a pseudonym. He said he did not know “Bacile”‘s real name. He said Bacile contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside of mosques and schools, and because, he said, he is a Vietnam veteran and an expert on uncovering al Qaeda cells in California. “After 9/11 I went out to look for terror cells in California and found them, piece of cake. Sam found out about me. The Middle East Christian and Jewish communities trust me.” Just forget all the previous reports where he supposedly identified himself as a Jewish Israeli/American. Just put that aside…. “Consider all the contradictions: small ones, true, like in one account he is 52 and in another he is 56. To the AP he is “a California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew” and to the Times of Israel he is “Jewish and familiar with the region.” And what about that bit at the end of the statement to the Times of Israel—that “even Jesus” should be “in front of the judge”? That sounds like someone who is trying to provoke more than just Muslims. A lot of things don’t add up here about the claimed identity of the filmmaker.” Sarah Posner Forget the fact that according to the Times of Israel the guy claimed that “everyone” has to be put on trial including Jesus and Muhammad… not Moses by the way. He doesn’t mention Moses having to stand before the “judge”, whatever that means. “The main problem is I am the first one to put on the screen someone who is (portraying) Muhammad. It makes them mad,” Bacile said. “But we have to open the door. After 9/11 everybody should be in front of the judge, even Jesus, even Muhammad.” Times of Israel But forget all of that. According to a guy who is known for targeting children at school with his fear-mongering hate filled messages, Bacile isn’t Jewish. and if you can’t trust a known liar and fear-monger who targets children with his hate, who can you trust? Meanwhile, send in the drones. Obama is unleashing the drones to attack certain areas of Libya. Looks like they are going to attack strongholds of the Green Revolution under the guise of this ridiculous crap (which, it turns out, was planned in advance by the same people the State Department used to destabilize Libya in the first place Comparisons have been made to Kony 2012. They are apt in my opinion. Curiously, President Obama praised Libyan security personnel for their efforts to protect our ambassador during the “attack”. I guess he isn’t aware that a Libyan official admits that the security forces moved Ambassador Stevens to a less secure location and then told the mob where he was. “Mr. Obama also offered praise for the Libyan government, noting that Libyan security forces fought back against the mob, helped protect American diplomats and took Mr. Stevens’s body to the hospital. “This attack will not break the bonds between the United States and Libya,” he said.” New York Times “Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building, deemed safer, after the initial wave of protests at the consulate. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocate, and that building then came under attack.

Condemning electoral fraud - unless it's Mexican

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Pic by Rafael Stedie

If the news of election shenanigans had been from Russia or Iran, our media headlines would be screaming fraud. As Counterpunch's Paul Imison reports,Washington has quickly recognised Mexico's election result unlike its condemnation of recent elections in Russia. Although there is no immediate prospect of a return to the mass protests of 2006 following that disputed election, it's not just defeated left candidate Lopez Obrador condemning massive fraud.

The PRI’s Enrique Peña Nieto is officially the president-elect. Despite evidence gathered by both defeated leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) and the #YoSoy132 pro-democracy movement to show that vote-buying, threats and ballot-tampering were widespread on July 1, he will likely remain so – in large part thanks to the Federal Electoral Institute's (IFE) refusal to condemn what AMLO’s Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD) has called “the dirtiest election in Mexico’s history.”

For the record, the official count (after the partial recount) by IFE goes like this: Enrique Peña Nieto with 38.21% (19.2 million votes), AMLO with 31.59% (15.9 million votes) and Josefina Vazquez Mota of the incumbent PAN with 25.41% (12.3 million votes).

Yesterday AMLO gave his final word (for now) on the election result, presenting 500 pages’ worth of evidence including 300 videos and 400 citizen testimonies to the Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary (TEPJF), along with a claim that the PRI spent some US$297 million on Peña Nieto’s campaign, vastly exceeding IFE’s official cap of $25 million.

El Pais has told Mexico's left to dump Lopez Obrador for his refusal to accept the election result, tainted by mass bribery, paid-or news coverage favouring 'winner' Pena Nieto and fixed pre-election polls.As Mexico and Gulf reporter writes:

Spain's El País, the most influential newspaper in the country and one of the most respected in Europe, today called defeated PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador a poor loser and a "dead weight" on his leftist Democratic Revolution Party.

The lead editorial was published in Madrid under the title "Obrador es un lastre." Lastre means a burden or weight.

El País wrote that there is "no evidence of widespread irregularities" in the July 1 election. Mexico's federal electoral authority says PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto won by more than 3.3 million votes, or 6.62% of the total cast.

AMLO hits back

Referring to the severe economic woes which the once great imperial power is now facing (including 25% unemployment), López Obrador told the prestigious paper, "It would be better to focus on your own responsibility in the disaster which is now Spain." 

Gunwalker scandal - ATF supplied Mexico drug gangs with guns

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What we seem to be witnessing in Mexico and in other parts of the world is a so-called strategy of tension, creating mayhem in order to serve geostrategic US goals. It's the modern equivalent of divide and rule as used in the British empire. The strategy of tension is just as pernicious and leads to countless deaths. Now Obama is in trouble over 'Fast and Furious' - the ATF gun running scandal in Mexico. When people doubt that US agencies would infiltrate and orchestrate terror plots, just look at Fast and Furious, then laugh or weep.

From Tim Stanley in the Daily Telegraph 

Fast and furious hasn’t been discussed a lot in the mainstream media, which is why the facts can seem so preposterous when you read them for the first time. But the story is slowly unraveling and the public is catching up with the madness. On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt over his decision to withhold documents related to the “gun walking” operation – documents that President Obama tried to keep secret by invoking executive privilege. The question of why the Prez intervened in this way will surely hang over the investigation and the White House for many months to come. Be patient, conservatives. It took nearly eight months for the Watergate break in to become a national news story. But when it finally did, it toppled a President.


Here’s what Fast and Furious is all about – and for the uninitiated, be prepared for a shock. In 2009, the US government instructed Arizona gun sellers illegally to sell arms to suspected criminals. Agents working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were then ordered not to stop the sales but to allow the arms to “walk” across the border into the arms of Mexican drug-traffickers. According to the Oversight Committee’s report, “The purpose was to wait and watch, in hope that law enforcement could identify other members of a trafficking network and build a large, complex conspiracy case…. [The ATF] initially began using the new gun-walking tactics in one of its investigations to further the Department’s strategy. The case was soon renamed ‘Operation Fast and Furious.”
Tracing the arms became difficult, until they starting appearing at bloody crime scenes. Many Mexicans have died from being shot by ATF sanctioned guns, but the scandal only became public after a US federal agent, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, was killed by one of them in a fire fight. ATF whistle blowers started to come forward and the Department of Justice was implicated. It’s estimated that the US government effectively supplied 1,608 weapons to criminals, at a total value of over $1 million. Aside from putting American citizens in danger, the AFT also supplied what now amounts to a civil war within Mexico.

Obama's drone wars - killing the innocent for votes

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Every time you read a report about US drones killing 'militants', remember that the truth is they are just as likely to be children or workers - innocents blown up to help Obama's re-election campaign. Clive Stafford Smith has been to Waziristan to find out who is actually being killed by Obama's drones.
At least so-called terrorists are fighting to remove foreign occupiers - you might not like their ideology but from time immemorial it has been the right of people to resist aggressors and occupiers. Given most so-called terror plots against America are actually orchestrated by the FBI and CIA, there is simply no justification for drone wars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia or anywhere else. These countries need peace, security and development. Instead, the West supports corrupt regimes and funds security forces to suppress their own people in the name of anti-terrorism. The results are well known as far apart as the Gulf of Aden to the Gulf of Mexico - chaos, conflict and social breakdown.