Desert storm engulfs Bani Saud

By Tahir Mustafa

The desert is harsh and unforgiving. Those caught in it have little chance of survival unless they have proper provisions: water, food and a sense of direction.

The Bani Saud clan that has ruled the Arabian Peninsula since being installed in power by the British in 1925–1926, are beginning to see the desert storm gather around them but they seem to have little clue as to how to escape its devastating consequences. People of the desert, Bani Saud have gone soft spending their lives in air-conditioned palaces consuming large quantities of alcohol together with gorging enormous amounts of food. Not surprisingly, one can hardly find a single member of the clan without a huge protruding belly, the direct result of over-stuffing.

To be fair to them, other Arabian rulers are little better but the problem with Bani Saud is that they display behavioral traits that are hastening the end of their miserable existence. They are extremely arrogant, treacherous, lazy, and completely incompetent. Add to that their barbarism and one can see why their shelf life is coming to an end.

One does not have to dig too deep into history to find evidence for their completely insane policies. Where others would exercise caution, Bani Saud plunge headlong into problems. Take Yemen; for a year now, the Saudis have been bombing the poorest country in the region. Apart from killing thousands of innocent civilians, destroying the country’s infrastructure and causing a humanitarian disaster, they have achieved little in terms of their objectives.

The Saudi army is made up of rank amateurs that cannot even tie their shoelaces properly, much less fire a gun straight. Like the 10 million workforce they have hired from such poor countries as Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and the Philippines, they think they can hire mercenaries to do the fighting for them as well. But Bani Saud are finding it a tough sell. Their traditional sources — Pakistan, Egypt, et al. — have balked at providing troops in what they perceive as the Yemeni quagmire. Bani Saud are now stuck there. They have had to rely on mercenaries from Sudan, Senegal, and even Colombia and Argentina in South America (actually the UAE has hired these mercenaries) to fight for them in Yemen. Blackwater mercenaries fled from West Ta’iz last month after coming under relentless attacks from the lightly armed but highly motivated Ansarallah fighters.

The Ansarallah revolutionary fighters of Yemen have given a good account of their skills and not only killed many Saudi and Emirati troops but also captured or destroyed several Saudi military bases near the border with Yemen. The Ansarallah have also captured military equipment from fleeing Saudi soldiers. If Yemen has been a colossal failure of Saudi policy — actually that of Muhammad bin Salman, the Kingdom’s defence minister and deputy crown prince but in reality the de facto king because his 80-year-old father, Salman is virtually incapacitated suffering from dementia and other ailments — Syria has been an even greater disaster. To be fair, the father and son duo inherited the Syrian mess from previous King Abdullah but there is nothing to prevent Bani Saud from stopping these wars instead of continuing to dig themselves deeper into the hole.

For nearly five years, Bani Saud and their court preachers have indoctrinated, financed and then unleashed takfiri terrorist monsters on Syria. The mercenaries have been recruited from Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and also many European countries where disgruntled Muslim youth — men and women — have been lured into the takfiri web in Syria from which there is no escape.

The aim was to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Asad and replace it with a takfiri-salafi state aligned with Saudi Arabia. The takfiri project has also had the support of regimes in Washington, Tel Aviv, Ankara, and Doha. This grand conspiracy against al-Asad’s government has been frustrated with help from Hizbullah, Islamic Iran, and Russia. Realizing their failure in overthrowing it militarily, the US has opted for diplomacy and negotiations but the aim of regime change has not been amended. The imperialists and their allies continue to harp on the mantra, “Asad must go.” They are even blaming Russia for backing al-Asad and, therefore, prolonging the conflict in Syria as if al-Asad’s departure would satisfy the head-choppers and organ-eaters, and bring peace to Syria.

At one level, the imperialist-Zionist project has been successful: Syria as a state has been rendered ineffective. This was one of the major aims of the Zionists and their neocon allies in Washington: “to secure the realm” (meaning Zionist Israel) as spelled out in the Project for the New American Century document (1997). In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in Davos on January 21, 2016, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alluded to this when he said the best option for Syria would be “benign Balkanization.”

Bani Isra’il and Bani Saud are on the same page in Syria and their secret alliance has now exploded into the open. They both want to destroy Syria, failing that, to weaken it so much that it would not be able to offer much help to the resistance front comprising Hizbullah, Iran, Iraq, and the Palestinian resistance groups.

The Saudis have always used their checkbook to achieve their nefarious designs. This has been their favorite mode of operation both at home and abroad. Of late, however, this option has been severely constrained. This is again the result of their ill-conceived policies, such as flooding the market with oil to hurt Russia and Iran. While the two countries have been somewhat affected, the impact of falling oil prices has been much more significant on the Saudi economy. It is dependent on oil for 90% of its revenues. With its war on Yemen costing $6 billion/month (Bruce Reidel: Al-Monitor, December 28, 2015), the Saudis have had to dip into their reserves. The 2016 budget has a deficit of $98 billion and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Saudi reserves would be wiped out in five years.

Low oil prices have also affected Bani Saud allies such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, and Qatar. They have complained that their economies are being hurt as a result of policies formulated in Riyadh in which they have little input, much less control.

It is, however, at the domestic front that Bani Saud now face a serious challenge. Their contradictions have caught up with them. The December 28, 2015 decision by the Saudi cabinet chaired by the ailing King Salman (but in reality presided by his upstart son Muhammad) to impose new fees on numerous services and the lifting of subsidies on other goods, notably petroleum derivatives, caused panic among the people. The following day, there were long line-ups at gas stations — something unheard of in the medieval Kingdom — because the price of gasoline was to go up by 40% on January 1.

Saudi Finance Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf caused further grief when he told Al-Hayat newspaper on December 29, “Saudi Arabia will gradually apply a value-added tax of 5% as of the beginning of 2016.” Bin Salman (BS for short) is the one making all the decisions whether related to foreign, military, political, or economic policy. He has already made a mess of things in Yemen and his half-baked proposal for a military alliance of 34 countries to fight terrorism, quickly turned into a joke when a number of countries supposedly in the alliance expressed surprise at being included. Others, notably Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Oman were pointedly kept out, the first four most intimately involved in fighting terrorism.

Bin Salman was cagey in his interview with the Economist on January 4 denying that any taxes had been imposed, other than the 5% value-added tax on accessories, soft drinks, and cigarettes. When the Economist persisted, asking whether more taxes can be imposed without increasing the people’s representation in the decision-making process (there is none at present) Bin Salman responded in a manner revealing how detached he is from reality. “Again, one thing is not related to the other. This is not a decision from the government against the people.” The government, he claimed, represents the people and does not make decisions about reforms without conducting “workshops” that include a variety of citizens.

How does the government or the ruling Bani Saud family represent the people? Have the people ever been given an opportunity to express their views on any matter, much less one of choosing the ruler? After ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn Saud, power has passed from one of his sons to the next in line. The people have no say in this at all. Further, there is no input from the people on any policy matters. In 2009, when a group of academics requested — yes requested — then Interior Minister Nayef ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz to establish a committee to oversee human rights violations, they were all promptly arrested and most of them are still in prison. There are in fact nearly 40,000 political prisoners in the desert Kingdom, most held on such charges as asking for respect for basic human rights and dignity.

But what are these “workshops” that Bin Salman was talking about: are they some kind of teaching sessions in which people are treated as students and told what to think? Who is invited to these “workshops” and who decides whether a person should be invited or barred? His “royal highness” did not provide any answers. Perhaps he has never heard of the expression: no taxation without representation.

Hitherto, this was the case in the desert Kingdom. The regime did not impose any taxes because there was plenty of money earned from oil sales. People’s loyalty could be bought. Saudi citizens went to school and then university, all expenses paid, at the end of which a job waited for them. If and when they went to the office, they would drink endless cups of coffee served to them by foreign expatriates — Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, etc. — and the Saudis would simply collect a paycheck at the end of the month.

With this arrangement, Bani Saud felt they could get away with it since people did not pay any taxes. Instead, their financial needs were taken care of. Those in need and able to get through the elaborate ring of security erected around the king’s court, could petition the “merciful and benevolent” king for some bakhsheesh. The ones who made it to the inner sanctum were never turned away empty-handed even if the courtiers demanded sycophantic rants from supplicants before they were thrown some crumbs.

This is no longer the case. The coffers are running dry. Dissatisfaction is rising and people are no longer willing to put up with decisions in whose formulation or implementation they have had no input but whose consequences they must suffer. People are no longer willing to accept that power and wisdom flow from the loins of Bani Saud alone.

Radical face of Saudi Wahhabism

By S. IRFAN HABIB

The agenda of the Islamic State today is merely an extension of the devious plan laid down by Abdul Wahhab almost two hundred years ago It is ironical indeed that the Turkish regime today is implicated in propping up a terrorist group called the Islamic State (IS), which has vowed to spread Wahhabi Islam all over the world. The present Wahhabism, legitimated and empowered by the Saudi regime, has violent, almost criminal, origins in the 19th century. If we care to look into its beginnings, we won’t be surprised at its utter contempt for human life and everything else which doesn’t conform to its own narrow/sectarian agenda. Let me explain the irony first.

 It was the Ottoman regime which bore the brunt of Wahhabi Islam soon after it became a force in the Central Arab region. The toxic combine of 18th century Islamic scholar Abdul Wahhab and the first monarch of Saudi Arabia Ibn Saud posed a challenge to the Ottoman rule. They also questioned the prevalent Islamic beliefs and practices. The Turks not only defended their power but also assiduously fought for the mystic Islam they had professed and supported all these years. The Ottomans fought and exiled the Wahhabis to the Arab deserts where they remained for almost a century.

This Wahhabi bigotry was condemned by the Turks as criminal and unIslamic. The sad irony is that the current Turkish regime has joined the Wahhabi bandwagon, forgetting all about the Bektashis, Qadiris and other dervishes they had cherished all these centuries. The IS agenda today is merely an extension of the devious plan laid down by Abdul Wahhab almost 200 years ago. Let us look at this so-called puritan Islam proposed by the Wahhabis, its violent ‘othering’ of Muslims they disliked and the parallels with the present day IS terrorists.

 DANGEROUS LESSONS: If the Islamic State is detonating shrines, it is following the precedent set in the 1920s by the House of Saud. Picture shows the Prophet Younis Mosque after it was destroyed in a bomb attack by Islamic State militants in Mosul.DANGEROUS LESSONS: If the Islamic State is detonating shrines, it is following the precedent set in the 1920s by the House of Saud. Picture shows the Prophet Younis Mosque after it was destroyed in a bomb attack by Islamic State militants in Mosul. Hate-filled agenda

Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, and his radical, exclusionist puritanism became deadlier when Ibn Saud decided to add its religious fervour to his banditry. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader amongst many of continually fighting and raiding Bedouin tribes in the desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.) Thus Abdul Wahhab, in collaboration with Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, laid down its sectarian and hate-filled agenda. He denounced his opponents and all Muslims unwilling to accept his views as idolaters and apostates, and abused the prophets, scholars, saints and other pious figures of the past. All those who did not adhere to his proposed version of Islam were to be killed; their wives and daughters violated. Shias, Sufis, and other Muslims whom he judged unorthodox were to be exterminated, and all other faiths to be humiliated or destroyed. With this awful doctrine, the foundation was laid for Islamic fundamentalism, leading ultimately to terrorism, vitiating the lives of not only Muslims but everyone else in the world.


 Most of the so-called Islamic terrorist groups today are inspired by this devious political ideology. Saudi money and power has succeeded in mainstreaming this hate-filled conning of Islam as the true, puritan Islam, where any deviation is dubbed as unIslamic. Unfortunately, most Western writers on Islam took Wahhabi claims to represent reform against the alleged decadence of traditional Islam at face value. American journalist Stephen Schwartz says that the Wahhabi rejection of ostentatious spirituality is much the same as the Protestants detesting the veneration of saints in the Roman Church. Western observers have seen the movement as analogous with Christian Reformation. Sadly, they have failed to make a distinction between reform and bigotry.



 IS and other terrorist groups today have taken the original Wahhabi perversion to even greater heights where they don’t even refer to their roots. The Saudi regime itself feels threatened by the monster their ideology helped create. They have publicly distanced themselves from IS terrorism and even used the chief cleric of Mecca to declare IS terrorism a heinous crime under sharia law. This is one consistent duplicity which the Saudis have pursued whenever they found themselves stuck in a tight spot. However, the stark parallels between IS and its ilk and the Saudi-Wahhabi travesty are telling. If IS is detonating shrines, it is following the precedent set in the 1920s by the House of Saud with the Wahhabi-inspired demolition of 1,400-year-old tombs in the Jannat ul Baqi cemetery in Medina. Again, the hatred for the Shia Muslims is one of the core beliefs of the Wahhabis. The earliest destructions and killings they carried out were in Karbala in the early 19th century, which was followed by the looting and wrecking of the tomb of Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet. Whatever be the face, bile against the Shias has remained a constant throughout Wahhabi-Saudi history, which is being carried forward by its latest flag bearers, the IS and Al Qaeda.

  Wahhabism’s reinvention Why did hydra-headed Wahhabism become so menacingly active during the past few decades? One factor may be the Iranian Revolution of the 1970s, which was perceived as a threat by Wahhabism that had begun to look dated by then. It, therefore, had to reinvent itself to remain relevant. This reinvention had deadly manifestations such as the Boko Haram, the Al Shabab, the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and now the IS, and many others all over the world. Even Shia Islam changed radically in the post Ayatollah Khomeini era; it is no more as relaxed as it used to be.


 The Saudi and Qatari regimes seem to have realised that they have created a monster in ISIS, which is now a threat to their own peaceful existence. Though IS remains deeply Wahhabist, it is ultra radical and “could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism.” Today, a collective military action seems to be the only way to check the IS menace, but a lasting peace in the Islamic world is possible only if a battle is waged within Islam to change the mindset. Besides we need to look beyond the usual Islamophobic and Islamophilic perspectives. (S. Irfan Habib holds the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Chair, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.)

The Axis of Evil: USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia

By Prof. Rodney Shakespeare

These three – USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia – who are Evil Incarnate, are behind the heart-eaters, the throat-slitters, the gas chokers and head-choppers of the Jabhat al Nusra, Wahhabi, Salafists and Takfiri in Syria. They are behind the Egyptian military which, in one day, has slaughtered well over six hundred people. (O wonderful Egyptian soldiers!) They are behind the destruction and creeping genocide of Palestine and they are behind yesterday’s bombing in Beirut.” Related Interviews: ‘Egypt will never benefit from Al Saud’ ‘Saudis trouble region to serve masters’ Is there any limit to the devilry of the Axis of Evil? Could Satan do more? For cruelty, deception, viciousness, egregious hypocrisy and world-scale destructiveness, the Axis will soon be beating anything else in history. The Axis consists of the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia. It is now right out there, in the open, for all to see, and their evil intent, and the evil they are doing, cannot be denied. In your mind, go back twelve years when every sane person knows that the 9/11 attack on the New York World Trade Center was helped along by the CIA and Mossad to become something on the grand scale. There are about ninety evidential aspects which confirm this but most people know that just one - the sudden collapse into powder of a building, Tower Number Seven, which was NOT struck by an airplane - is the tell-tale evidence that 9/11 was an inside job. Don’t forget that the collapse of Tower Number Seven was announced half an hour BEFORE it actually happened. The BBC announcer was reading from a specially prepared piece of paper and it got read out half an hour BEFORE it was supposed to be read out! But the real ‘smoking gun’ information about 9/11 came ten days LATER when General Wesley Clark was visiting the Pentagon. General Clark was the recently retired,4-star US Army general, who was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 War on Yugoslavia. You don’t get much higher than that. And, because he had had high command, he was told the truth - 9/11 was only the hors d’oeuvres. The main meal would be coming in the years ahead and the Pentagon spelt it out - “We’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” 9/11 was done by the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iraq was done, and is being done, bythe USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia. And Libya and Somalia and Sudan have been, or are being done, as is Lebanon. Furthermore, when the opportunity arises, another country gets done by the Axis and that’s what’s happening with Egypt. And they are bragging that they are friends with each other! The USA is friends with Saudi Arabia which is friends with Israel which is, not just friends, but the controller of the USA. There’s a big reason for this. In the USA somewhere between fifty and sixty million Americans are Christian Zionists who not only support Israel but positively want Israel to precipitate a huge war in the Middle East. If this happens, they think, God will waft them up to Heaven - you can’t make up this sort of thing, can you? But it’s true. These three - USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia - who are Evil Incarnate, are behind the heart-eaters, the throat-slitters, the gas chokers and head-choppers of the Jabhat al Nusra, Wahhabi, Salafists and Takfiri in Syria. They are behind the Egyptian military which, in one day, has slaughtered well over six hundred people. (O wonderful Egyptian soldiers!) They are behind the destruction and creeping genocide of Palestine and they are behind yesterday’s bombing in Beirut. Decent people should realize that it’s not just a bit of torturing and assassinations that they’re up to; it’s not just continual bombing that they’re up to; it’s not just wholesale spying and the complete and absolute control of their own, and other populations, that they’re up to; and it’s not just the wholesale smashing of countries, one by one, that they’re up to. It’s worse than that - perverted lunatics that they are, they are trying to ignite world-wide war. Of course they lie about it, as they lie about everything. Christopher Hill, former USA ambassador to Iraq, said that Saudi Arabia was fomenting sectarian violence. What a liar! Yes, Saudi Arabia was fomenting violence but he said that to hide the fact that the USA and Israel were also fomenting the violence in Iraq, and they still are because all three of them want to smash Iraq apart. In July there were one thousand killed and thousands wounded in the month of July alone and now you know why. And it’s the same with Egypt - the USA is backing the military junta which has slaughtered seven hundred (or much more) unarmed people in one day. How brave! The Americans and Israelis must be really proud of themselves - it normally takes at least a month to get that sort of score. The USA has been up to this sort of thing for decades. It’s not just at war every year; it’s in continual partnership with terrorists. War and terrorists, one way or another, the West has murdered, at a minimum, twenty five million people since World War Two. Well done, the Axis of Evil! But they are not just the Axis of Evil. They are becoming something else as well -pariahs, as they’ll find out one day when even their best friends will buck up the courage to tell them…

Prof. Rodney Shakespeare is a visiting Professor of Binary Economics at Trisakti University, Jakarta, Indonesia. He is a Cambridge MA, a qualified UK Barrister, a co-founder of the Global Justice Movement www.globaljusticemovement.net, a member of the Christian Council for Monetary Justice.