Dunces, Dukes and Princes talk to Trump

what a great photo by Saudi Press Agency

Dunce hats on a few of the Persian Gulf autocrats.

Dunces. Dunces who managed to get U.S.dunces to kill a lot of Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis, among others, on their behalf. Petrodollars buys killing to save their dunce necks.

photo copied from John Duke Anthony & Fahad Nazer piece:

http://ncusar.org/aa/2016/12/gcc-us-relations-under-trump-administration/

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations - home of a lot of paid flacks including Anthony himself, disgraced-leaker-of-secrets Petraeus, three Saudi princes including neocon Sunni-terrorist fanboy Turki, professional apologist Nawaf Obaid, and at least one Al-Jubair not Adel, Jubeir spelled both ways, plus Michael Hudson, Raghida Dergham and others.

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I found the piece to be distasteful and shameful, let alone one-sided P.R. meant to sway the dunces without flags over their heads, namely, the uninformed. Well, it's paid. Those pundits get paid to do the shameful deeds, participate in repression of truth for money, spread false stories and propaganda for money. When the money sits in the same room with the pen, money talks. Money has the room as well as the floor.

1) Anthony wrote about anticipation that President-elect Trump will take seriously the GCC’s deep concerns about Iran’s policies in the Arab world. 

My question is logical and different and deserves to be asked. Will Trump take seriously Iran's deep concerns about GCC member's disturbing, sectarian war-mongering, terrorist-supporting policies in the Middle East, indeed, in the world?

 With Generals Flynn and Mattis each speaking into one of Trump's ears, he hears some anti-Iran this, anti-Iran that talk. He hears it's good for business. Yeah, yeah, the defense industry can continue to sell arms to Gulfies, billions and billions worth.

    But the Saudis can try to cut off the head of their own snake. Obama's Pentagon has assisted the Saudis and their lousy coalition in the disastrous Yemen war, and maybe Trump will continue to support bombing and starving people for Mo Salman to prove his manhood, for occasional swipes at Al Qaeda or ISIS, for military bases and pipelines from deserts to seas. It'll take guts to end the U.S. part in that dreadful war. Trump has a big mouth but I don't know if he's got any guts.

 Fortunately for Iran, Trump will also hear Rex Tillerson, with both ears, whether he gets the Sec. State post or not. He's already got a pipeline to Trump's ear and that's not going away. I have a strong feeling that Tillerson feels strongly about, say, the facilities at Ras Tanura and Jubail and thinks about where Iranian rockets could land That's the kind of money that I think will talk to Trump.      

2) Pity no dunce hat for JD Anthony who calls Iraqi PMUs non-state actors. They're under control of the Iraqi Prime Minister. Period. U.S. wasn't in favor of Iraqi parliament approval of placing the PMUs in with the regular armed forces for campaigns, but it's happened. PMUs are not going to be allowed to enter with some other Iraqi and Kurdish forces in some places specifically to avoid sectarianism and the appearance thereof. 

So far the reports even from U.S. general in major news media have been positive to the PMUs' effectiveness and speed. They've gone where they were ordered to go and not further. 

There's plenty more in the piece which runs counter to facts and would make lousy policy. Think-tankery public relations is going to be getting more publicity about its funders and the extreme views they propagate. The Saudis multi-million dollar handouts to those chaps aren't going to be enough to cover up their evil deeds. They deserve dunce hats. 

Shaikh Nimr Al Nimr Will Get His Revenge, Posthumously

Sheikh Nimr Al Nimr, may he rest in peace, called for secession of the most-heavily Shia populated province of Saudi Arabia if there was no end to governmental discrimination, abuse, repression, jailing, torturing and murdering of its Shia citizens who live there and have lived there before the Al Sauds "unified" parts of Arabia. The fact that the province holds massive quantities of hydrocarbons by which the Al Sauds have enriched themselves and blackmailed the world is not unknown to its underprivileged residents.

Shaikh Nimr's martyrdom.

In the dark of night following the fireworks of New Year and by order of the murderous thug leading the Saudi regime, Shaikh Nimr was martyred by gory beheading for peacefully expressing his political views which may help bring about the breakup of the KSA in ways long sought by others.

2015 proved yet again that the Al Saud cannot competently manage the Hajj and the Holy Places. Calls have been loudly made since the two disasters last year for the administration to be removed from the Saudis, for an internationalized body instead.

Yemen would like three of its historical provinces returned to their sovereignty. Perhaps they might consider additional territory as part of the costs the Sauds must pay for the death, destruction and chaos they've wrought in the reckless Mohammed bin Salman "Bonesaw" and dirty war prince Mohammed bin Zayed's war and starvation campaign against the mostly innocent Yemenis.

(It's been reported that Mohammed bin Salman loves to play poker and gamble. One hopes he pays mightily for the gamble in Yemen, but so far it appears Bonesaw is using the country's funds and only mightily paying Trump, including the support of Kushner's plan to gift all of Palestine to Israel.)

The U.S. government and Big Oil had a well-developed contingency plan to break up KSA into five parts around the time in September 1980 when Saddam Hussein began the long war against Iran. U.S. Sec. Def. Brown's comments about it were in the press and I repeated them in a private conversation in Bahrain shortly thereafter with a senior government official who is now even more senior, the sel-appointed king. He laughed, but it was out the side of his face.

The Eastern Province is surely a candidate for separation, and more if there is justice. Adding a bridge and fast trains and some islands to which it is historically-related would help resolve a sectarian issue in three Persian Gulf countries on the Arab side, but that is down the road a bit.

Meanwhile, the energy companies who are happy to do business with Iran will be more than happy to do business with the Shia-dominated government of the new province just as they now do business with the Al Sauds. Green is green, isn't it?

Shaikh Nimr will not be forgotten. 

Bahrain military plane falls out of sky in Saudi Arabia

The useless local press says the BDF plane malfunctioned before it crashed with military personnel onboard in the Saudi province close to Yemen.

Perhaps when an airplane is hit by an incoming missile it will malfunction.

Why The Gulf Nations Don't Take Syrian Refugees

so ...

The lousy NYT ran a story a couple days ago about the fact that wealthy Persian Gulf nations -- whose state and private funds help support the Sunni terrorist groups in Syria and elsewhere -- are not taking in refugees fleeing from the war in Syria. It's highly likely that they're also not taking in victims of the Saudi's dastardly aggression in Yemen, either.

Nope, the Gulfies are good at importing Sunni mercenaries from all over the Arab world, to do the tough jobs which their own citizens cannot be trusted to do. For example, in Bahrain they fill out the ranks of the military, police and secret services. They're brought in to alter the demographic balance on the island as well as assure loyalty through financial and other benefits such as free housing and medical care, cheap loans, subsidized meat, bread, electricity and fuel. How else could those men and their families afford to live in the Gulf? They even pay the ultimate price for those jobs, dying in lands not their own and for a country not their own.

Well, if they're unskilled or day laborers, they can live in accommodation with multiple other such workers or in the lousy worker camps built for those who are doing the manual labor that has built the gleaming towers throughout the Gulf. There were eleven such men living in a one bedroom apartment in the block of flats where I lived in Adliya the last time I was there. I doubt that situation has changed since then.

If they're rich refugees, no problem. Welcome. 

Cowards. Rotten cowards, the whole lot of them. I read Marc Owen Jones's piece putting forth some cogent reason why their regimes don't take in refugees from the conflicts they support. He left out the obvious. They're a bunch of cowards.