Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"The issue is not Sanders' own personal anti-imperialist credentials, nor is critiquing a worthy effort to end a war a holistic condemnation. The issue is the normalisation, without debate, of a "war on terror" that has produced a body count higher than that of the evil it is supposed to counter. Sanders' resolution, excluding this US war from debate on a US-backed war in the same theatre, reflects this." How a Bernie Sanders resolution is normalising "the war on terror"

"Reasons include the United States' interest in maintaining lucrative arms deals with the Gulf states – primarily Saudi Arabia – and the fact that many U.S. politicians support bombing Iran (as demanded by the  right-wing Israeli leadership)." Middle East nightmare – made in Washington

The political economy of oil, empire, Saudi Arabia, "Jihad", global forces of capital, "Islam", "democracy", etc. Some interesting stuff here. I don't think though that the figure regarding the numbers of the Iraqi deaths due to sactions is accurate. Recent studies have the put the number of deaths around 200,000. I also think that Mitchell should have put both words Islam and democracy in inverted commas. "McJihad: Islam and Empire"

The conflict in Yemen is not really about Iranian influence, as is often claimed to and in Western capitals. It’s certainly not about legitimacy or democracy, nor yet about sect, creed or colour. It’s about filthy lucre, and the corrupt access to it via state-capture. The Arab Spring—a rising up of the “street” against the  kleptocracy —was co-opted and corrupted in Yemen by  political factions  (and their foreign sponsors.) The UN-sponsored  National Dialogue Conference  supposed to be a national fresh start after decades of corruption, nepotism and misrule, was itself corrupted by those very factions it sought to replace: many of the ancien regime were able to retain and leverage ill-gotten political and financial resources, despite those being the major cause of the 2011 uprising. And the West stood idly by. Radix Malorum est Cupiditas "Greed is the root of evil"

What kind of a war is the Yemen war?

Gulf Cooperation Council arms race

The Saudi predicament

A Crown Prince in the UK Saudi Crown Prince visit to the UK is hailed as a partnership between the two countries in "fighting terrorism". The state terrorism of the Saudi, the US, the UK, and other states over the last 50 years?  Hang on. There is $100 billion of deals on the table during this visit.  "Human rights"? Bin Slaman is making "a progress in granting Saudi women some rights". In the meantime,  UK should sell more weapons to the Saudis to kill more Yemeni women and children, with a sanction by the High Court. We are "civilised" and "democratic", the British consumers and subjects say. For that reason we exercise pur democratic rights and feeedoms in not questioning a visit of an autocratic (or an Egyptian dictator). Business as usual.

Germany When doves cry Note: there is no word about the selling of submarines, for example, to the settler colonial state of Israel.  Complicity in crimes for jobs and accumulation of capital.

"The “Houthis are Shi‘a” narrative should be seen for what it is—a carefully crafted piece of political rhetoric devised to gloss over important differences between religious denominations, to reinforce the false image of a war between those who identify as Sunni versus those who identify as Shi‘a, and to encourage foreign—and particularly US—military intervention in Yemen. It provides a dangerously simplistic mental short cut for policymakers who are unfamiliar with Yemeni history and politics. In so doing, it diverts attention from the massive humanitarian crisis caused by years of civil war and the US-backed Saudi-led coalition’s ongoing blockade and bombardment. The cynical use of sectarian language casts the conflict in Yemen as part of an epochal, region-wide struggle rather than a local civil war made more deadly for Yemeni civilians by Saudi and Emirati intervention." How the Houthis became "Shi'a"

When the celebrated Saudi-Jordanian novelist Abdel-Rahman Munif was asked why he named his literary masterpiece on the rise of the petro-modernist cities of the Gulf  Cities of Salt , he replied: By Cities of Salt, I meant cities that grew suddenly in an unnatural and extraordinary way, not as a result of a long historical accumulation that led to their expansion, but more as a kind of explosion due to sudden wealth. This wealth (oil) has led to inflated cities that have become like balloons that can explode and end once they touch something sharp. The same applies to salt. Although it is necessary for life, humans, and all creatures, any increase in its quantity  . . . life becomes unsustainable. This is what is expected of the cities of salt.  . . . When floods come to them, when electricity is cut off, or when you experience real difficulties of one kind or another, we will discover that these cities are fragile places ill fit to be modern cradles for human life and betterment.

The Saudi trillions including the Western complicity

After decades of robbery, plunder and selling of Arab oil on the cheap to the West, another big sell-off is coming. Heads must roll if the Arabs want to control their wealth. Saudi Arabia's big privatization plan to go head

Saudi Arabia is applying for a $10 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund!

The tone of the article, almost explicitly, makes it sound that the Qatari regime is a force of progress. In fact, both the Saudis and the Qatari are theocracies and part of the rentier economies of the Gulf Council and part of the international financial system of oppression and inequality and at the service of the big powers. The level of Qatari investment in London alone is staggering, including 95% of Shard the new skycraper and Canary Warf, not to speak of investment and donations to universities, etc Saudi Arabia's attempt at a Qatari coup backfired

"Clearly the so-called “sectarian civil war” in Yemen is a recent permutation of the self-declared Sunni monarchies’ geostrategic rivalry with the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as those ruling dynasties’ discrimination against their own Shi`a populations. Overall, ample evidence is presented that the problems that provoked Yemen’s Southern Movement ( hirak ) and the 2011 popular demonstrations, respectively, are rooted in militarism and corruption rather than religion, and that the Gulf’s royal families have for decades feared mass mobilization in the most populous, least prosperous, perennially restive part of the Peninsula." Arabia Incognita: Dispatches from Yemen and the Gulf

Being complicit in mass murder is legal, court rules After all the business of England is business. " The sales contribute to thousands of engineering jobs in the UK, and have provided billions of pounds of revenue for the British arms trade."

According to a U.S. army strategist: "In sum, U.S. policy in the Middle East is confused, contradictory, counterproductive, and dangerous. It could leave Washington involved in a war with Iran. (And given our recent wars in the region, imagine where that’s likely to land us.)" The worry is what would a war with Iran cost the U.S. Who cares of what would cost the Iranians? There are some interesting arguments though by this enlightened mind in the most dangerous imperialist army on earth. "America's Iran hysteria"

Qatar crisis: A new era of thuggery?

Yemen's disaster