I hope that we don't simply dismiss Donald Trump as "Crazy". Whether
this is a fact, or not, is beside the point. Donald Trump just
happens to be the American Corporate Empire's Poster Boy. It's true
that Donald Trump's face and voice dominated the Empire's Media for
months prior to his "election", but the fact is, he appealed to a
large cross section of Americans who see themselves in Donald Trump.
While I'm reading this article, and responding to it, I'm also
listening to Naomi Klein, speaking in Seattle. Prior to that, I tuned
into Richard Wolff's weekly program. Naomi will be followed by a
program featuring noam chomsky. Sunday mornings on KEXP FM features a
series of programs called, "Mind Over Matter". The noam chomsky talk
is broadcast on TUC(Time of Useful Consciousness). Such programming
go a long way toward saving my sanity.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/20/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I may have posted a very abstracted version of this earlier. Do read this
complete version of the article. It's informative and the author's
wonderful style at its best.
Miriam
Alternet
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > The Devious Aim of Trump's Trip to Saudi Arabia
The Devious Aim of Trump's Trip to Saudi Arabia
By Robert Fisk [1] / CounterPunch [2]
May 19, 2017
Donald Trump sets off on Friday to create the fantasy of an Arab Nato [3].
There will be dictators aplenty to greet him in Riyadh, corrupt autocrats
and thugs and torturers and head choppers. There will be at least one
zombie
president – the comatose, undead Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria who
neither
speaks nor, apparently, hears any more – and, of course, one totally insane
president, Donald Trump [4]. The aim, however, is simple: to prepare the
Sunni Muslims of the Middle East for war against the Shia Muslims. With
help
from Israel, of course.
Even for those used to the insanity of Arab leadership – not to mention
those Westerners who have still to grasp that the US President is himself
completely off his rocker – the Arab-Muslim (Sunni) summit in Saudi Arabia
[5] is almost beyond comprehension. From Pakistan and Jordan and Turkey and
Egypt and Morocco and 42 other minareted capitals, they are to come so that
the effete and ambitious Saudis can lead their Islamic crusade against
“terrorism” and Shiism. The fact that most of the Middle East’s “terrorism”
– Isis and al-Qaeda, aka the Nusrah Front – have their fountainhead in the
very nation to which Trump is travelling, must and will be ignored. Never
before in Middle Eastern history has such a “kumidia alakhta” – quite
literally “comedy of errors” in Arabic – been staged.
On top of all this, they have to listen to Trump’s ravings on peace and
Islamic “extremism”, surely the most preposterous speech to be uttered by a
US president since he is going to have to pretend that Iran is extremist –
when it is Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Isis clones who are destroying Islam’s
reputation throughout the world. All this while he is fostering war.
For Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (henceforth MbS) wants to
lead his Sunni tribes – plus Iraq if possible, which is why Shia Prime
Minister Abadi has been invited from Baghdad – against the serpent of
“terrorist” Shia Iran, the dark (Shia) “terrorist” Alawite regime of Bashar
al-Assad, the “terrorist” Shia Lebanese Hezbollah and the aggressive
“terrorist” Shia Houthis of Yemen. As for the Gulf states’ own Shia
minorities and other recalcitrants, well, off with their heads.
After all, that’s what the Saudis did to the prominent Saudi Shia leader
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr last year: they cut his head from his body, Isis-style,
in a classic bit of Wahhabi decapitation, along with 47 other “terrorists”.
And any powerful Shias in neighbouring Gulf countries will be cut down, too
– which is what happened to Bahrain’s Shia majority when the Saudi army
moved in to occupy the island in 2011 at the “request” of its Sunni ruler.
And you can see why America’s disgraceful President, a man who truly falls
into the regional pantheon of raving loonies – he surely ranks among the
Gaddafis and Ahmadinejads of the Middle East – goes along with this. The
fact that Isis – Trump’s mortal enemy and the strategic adversary of his
defence chiefs – is a creature of the same Salafist cult as Saudi Arabia,
is
neither here nor there. The Sunni Saudis and the Gulf kings and princes
possess immense wealth, the only religion that Trump really respects, and
they want to destroy Shia Iran and Syria and the Hezbollah and the Houthis
–
which is a simple “anti-terrorist” story for the Americans – and this means
that Trump can give MbS and his chums $100bn (£77bn) of US missiles,
planes,
ships and ammo for the war-to-come. America will be happy. And Israel will
be happy.
I guess Crown Prince Jared Kushner thinks he can handle this end of the
Arab-Nato alliance, though the Israelis themselves will be perfectly happy
to watch the Sunnis and Shia fight each other, just as they did during the
1980-88 Iran-Iraq war when the US supported Sunni Saddam – albeit that his
army was mostly Shia – and the Israelis furnished US missiles to the Shia
Iranians. Already, the Israelis have distinguished themselves by bombing
the
Syrian army, the Hezbollah and the Iranians in the Syrian war – while
leaving Isis untouched and giving medical assistance to al-Qaeda (Nusrah)
on
Golan.
Much has been made (rightly) of MbS’s threat to ensure that the battle is
“in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia”. But, typically, few bothered to listen
to
Iran’s ferocious reply to the Saudi threat. It came promptly from the
Iranian defence minister, Hossein Dehghan. “We warn them [the Saudis]
against doing anything ignorant,” he said, “but if they do something
ignorant, we will leave nowhere untouched apart from Mecca and Medina.” In
other words, it’s time to start building air raid shelters in Riyadh,
Jeddah, Dhahran, Aramco headquarters and all those other locations dear to
American hearts.
Indeed, it’s difficult not to recall an almost identical Sunni hubris –
almost four decades ago – to that of MbS today. The latter boasts of his
country’s wealth and his intention to diversify, enrich and broaden its
economic base. In 1980, Saddam was determined to do the same. He used
Iraq’s
oil wealth to cover the country in super-highways, modern technology,
state-of-the-art healthcare and hospitals and modern communications. Then
he
kicked off his “lightning war” with Iran. It impoverished his oil-rich
nation, humiliated him in the eyes of his fellow Arabs – who had to cough
up
the cash for his disastrous eight-year adventure – led to Saddam’s invasion
of Kuwait, sanctions and the ultimate Anglo-US invasion of 2003 and, for
Saddam, the hangman’s noose.
Yet this leaves out the Syrian dimension. Sharmine Narwani, a former senior
associate of St Antony’s College – and an antidote for all those sickened
by
the mountebank think-tank “experts” of Washington – pointed out this week
that US support for Kurdish forces fighting under the dishonest label of
“Syrian Democratic Forces” are, by advancing on Raqqa, helping to cut Syria
off from Iraq. And that Kurdish forces are now reported as “retaking”
Christian or Muslim Arab towns in the Nineveh province of Iraq, which were
never Kurdish in the first place. Kurds now regard Qamishleh, and Hassakeh
province in Syria as part of “Kurdistan”, although they represent a
minority
in many of these areas. Thus US support for these Kurdish groups – to the
fury of Sultan Erdogan and the few Turkish generals still loyal to him – is
helping to both divide Syria and divide Iraq.
This cannot and will not last. Not just because the Kurds are born to be
betrayed – and will be betrayed by the Americans even if the present
maniac-in-charge is impeached, just as they were betrayed to Saddam in the
days of Kissinger – but because Turkey’s importance (with or without its
own
demented leader) will always outweigh Kurdish claims to statehood. Both are
Sunnis, and therefore “safe” allies until one of them – inevitably the
Kurds
– must be abandoned.
Meanwhile, you can forget justice, civil rights, sickness and death.
Cholera
has quite a grip on Yemen now, courtesy of the criminal bombing attacks of
the Saudis – ably assisted by their American allies long before Trump took
over – and scarcely any of the Muslim leaders whom Trump meets in Riyadh do
not have torturers at work back home to ensure that some of their citizens
wish they had never been born. It will be a relief for the fruitcake
president to leave Israel for the Vatican, albeit given only a brief
visitation to – and short shrift by – a real peacemaker.
That only leaves one nation out of the loop of this glorious charivari:
Russia. But be sure Vladimir Putin comprehends all too well what is going
on
in Riyadh. He will watch the Arab Nato fall apart. His foreign minister
Lavrov understands Syria and Iran better than the feckless Tillerson. And
his security officers are deep inside Syria. Besides, if he needs any more
intelligence information, he has only to ask Trump.
Robert Fisk writes for the Independent [6], where this column originally
appeared.
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Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/devious-aim-trumps-trip-saudi-arabia
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/robert-fisk
[2] http://www.counterpunch.org/
[3]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-speech-radical
-islam-peaceful-muslim-saudi-arabia-international-trip-a7739441.html
[4]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-sa
udia-arabia-islam-speech-stephen-miller-musilm-ban-executive-order-a7742036.
html
[5]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-saudi-ara
bia-arms-deal-sale-arab-nato-gulf-states-a7741836.html
[6] http://www.independent.co.uk/
[7] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on The Devious Aim of
Trump's Trip to Saudi Arabia
[8] http://www.alternet.org/
[9] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
