21 May 2011

From Zizou



OUR Arab Spring is underway!

A musical interlude



My favorite

My Womb Delights


I lie here throughout the night
With lustful dreams of her
And then my womb delights
with thought of touching hers
Like moistened silk against my lips
And honey on my tongue
To clamber through her garden
And find her perfect rose
And on her well curved hips
Or upon her pointed breasts
My mind sits and then my heart skips
With uttter joy and dreaming I
Touch and taste her silkiness
And feel her pressed to me
We rock our hips as one in time
And I fall back completed in her arms

On links to other sites

I've added some links to other blogs ... and to be clear, I do not whole heartedly endorse everything on everyone.

One in particular has recently 'jumped the shark' with presenting the views of this regime and its apologists. So, rather than writing my own warning, I'm going to post a link to another one's warning. Qunfuz reminds us: read with a very large grain of salt!

After Assad 2: Beyond our Borders

Let’s imagine for a moment that Assad and his regime are gone. I’m not a prophet so I can no more say how it will happen than I can say when but I am quite certain that it will be sooner rather than later. Anyhow, let’s imagine that they are gone and that it has been a smooth transition, a ‘soft landing’ or what have you; like the end of Communism in, say, Poland or Hungary … and let’s imagine that, when the dust settles, there’s a vibrant, multiparty democracy here. The Communist and Syrian Nationalist parties compete with the Muslim Brotherhood, Kurdish regional parties, as well as anyone else who wants to run: Socialists, pro-business conservatives (ya Mitch Daniels, yella!), Armenian parties, heck, even the Baath party has seats in our parliament!

I can’t of course predict the exact balance of parties then: I’d presume that the Brotherhood or similar groups – maybe something like the Turkish AKP only rather more ‘modernist’ – and whatever the rump of a post-Assad, post dictatorship Baath would be the biggest, but I have no real idea (and honestly, anyone who gives precise numbers for syrian political opinion is finding their data in the clouds). However, I can make some guesses as to how a democratic, open Syria would look to its neighbors:

Terrifying!

And that is certainly not a good thing. Certainly, some states will see their own influence decline here. Take a look at this video from Hama, yesterday:



Neither Iran nor Russia have ever been popular here and, more than anything, that has been caused not by the people of those countries but by the relations their governments have had with the regime here. The French left and we were free from foreign control for a brief time … and then, when this regime first came to power, they wedded themselves to Moscow. And for a quarter century, Moscow had undue influence here. Russians came and acted like they were our colonial overlords. And the party tried to force us down the Soviet road. Sure, there were a few benefits: Muhammad Faris go to go to Mir …

and the army got some shiny toys. But we also got to experience a renewal of colonialism.
The Cold War ended and, logically, it should have meant the end of dependence on them though, lately, the regime has been trying to lure them back.

And then there’s Iran, an alliance that was forged when the ‘party of Arab unity’ in Damascus and the ‘party of Arab unity’ in Baghdad found that the promotion of the leader and sectarianism were more important. Saddam and Khomaini fought a war and ole Hafidh decided that Khomaini and the “Islamic Republic” was who he was pulling for … and so the secular socialist state slaughtered Sunnis while the sectarian neo-Safavids clapped their hands in glee. And Iranians flocked to Damascus; who has no memories of the packs of pilgrims lead by their ayatollah snapping photos through the city?

And when that war was over, they did not cut those ties but let them grow deeper; two states based on sectarian hatred and desire to avenge that Ali was passed over three times by wiser heads. While the American fools toppled Saddam, this regime’s ally was at least as responsible for the destruction of Iraq. The paragon of Arab unity smiled while they sent their agents and Iraqi traitors in to slaughter any Christian or Sunni that they could lay hand on. This party of Arab unity congratulated the murder of members of that party of Arab unity.

But I am sidetracked:

Of course, Iran stands to lose when Assad goes. 90% or more of Syrians despise that alliance. No way will a democratic Syria maintain a friendship with them, at least not a close one. And certainly not while their leader vows that he will fight the Israelis until the last drop of Syrian blood.

Who else stands to lose from Democracy in Damascus?

Certainly, the theives of Baghdad, all of them, will be dismayed; what happens to them when the Iraqi people start to question why they have been so long oppressed by sectarian warlords?

And closer … well, Lebanon will change greatly and soon. Back before this regime came to power, after Lebanon was created by the French, the big men of all the clans and sects met up and made their national pact. The Marouni wanted a western facing Lebanon, severed from the Arab nation and the Sunni leaders then wanted reunion with the rest of Syria. This regime, though, intervened to preserve minority rule, killed Jumblatt when he called for one Lebanese, one vote; they drove the Arab nationalists from them and favored assorted separatists, whether Christian or Shia. How long will the current blocs in Lebanon retain their balance once Syria is free?

How strong will the idea of sectarianism trumping all else remain there or in Iraq when sectarianism is dead here? How long before unionist parties are all the rage? And who stands to lose? Well, when sectarianisms’ days are numbered and Khusrau’s dreams have been denied, Hezbollah will weaken … and it is sad to see that once noble group that fought for freedom for all Lebanon already transform itself into another sectarian and separatist brand. Nasrallah’s TV promotes Assad’s lies; they fear us too.

But if Hezbollah declines, it should be but small comfort to our southwestern neighbors. A democratic Syria is, if anything, going to be rather more, not less, pro-Palestinian than the present regime. That cannot be helped; this regime is least of all the Arabs of Syria tied to the Palestinian people and has always lagged behind popular feeling on this question. Remember, it took a CIA coup and the overthrow of democracy here to get a ceasefire the first time. Remember, it wasn’t people from the regime that they expelled from Jaulan. No, they still want to go home and recovery of Jaulan has been something they, the Jaulanis, have made clear in Dera’a and Damascus in these days of the revolution. A dictator might have agreed to cede
Jaulan; no democratic government will.

And I have said this before, but will again, that the mapmakers need to be ready for the end of this season of revolution. When the dust has settled, some states will have merged and otehrs divided. This is not just a revolution against dictatorship; it is the end of the era inaugrated when the Caliphate fell and these minority regimes were installed by force of western arms. Soon, believe me, when we have democracy in all these states, the urge for unity will be heard again. All these states come from drinking bouts of Churchill and his peers; they will vanish when the last of these puppets goes. Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and yes, Palestine, were the bilad ash Sham and will be again.

Or maybe not: we will be for democracy at home and all around. We will have local responsible governments: when this regime is gone, there will be signs on Kurmanji in Qamishli; if in Idlib or Hama they want to ban sales of alcohol and in Latakia, Maaloula and Sweida they want to sell it 24 hours, they will. It is called democracy. So, if the people of a democratic Jordan want to join us, we will not stop them, nor make them if they don’t. If a democratic Lebanon wants to undo partition, so will we.

When we are democratic, we will not look kindly at sectarian regimes, dictatorships and occupations. We will support those who challenge those.

It will be a new region indeed. When we are through, there will be a whole new Middle East.

And while we, the Syrian people, will clearly benefit, so too will some others. Turkey, for instance, stands much to gain. Turkey can play the role of an elder brother to these emerging democratic states. For now, their heads are filled with their own elections but they are watching closely. What happens if the Kurds of Syria gain democratic freedom without war? Good things I suspect. And a new bloc of democratic states with expanding economies will emerge, looking to Turkey as the first. Remember the Asian tigers? Prepare for the Muslim tigers of tomorrow …

Outside powers will not be happy when our nation democratizes. We will not be handing off the assets of the nation, whether oil or canals, to the highest bidder. We will keep those for the common good, for ourselves. And as the democratic revolution spreads, those companies that have held these assets or managed them for the sons and grandsons of pirates and banditlords will likely see them shrink. Those foreign armies squatting on our lands will need to go home.

Is this good, is this bad? You tell me; I am saying what I foresee.

And knowing who won’t benefit and who will benefit from this regime’s fall makes me naturally suspicious of some offers of aid. Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, Netanyahu and Obama all represent groups that stand to lose if Assad goes. So will any or all of them back the regime? You tell me.

Tel Kalikh: The Evolving Lie

Tel Kalikh: The Evolving Lie


As everyone knows, the town of Tel Kalikh has, in the past few days, been the scene of some of the most brutal repression in the country. Tanks and large numbers of troops entered the town and shelled significant parts of it. And the regime has told numerous versions of what its doing.

The town is hard on the Lebanese border; if you’ve ever taken the highway to Tartous, you might recall long lines at gas stations right near the turn off for Krak des Chevaliers … that’s it. (Those long fuel lines? Lebanese coming to buy cheap Syrian petroleum). Not a place that really sticks in one’s mind for it’s own sake and a ‘mixed’ town. In that area, that means a town that’s majority Alawi – around 2/3rds – with the rest mainly Sunni and a few Christians. Hardly the sort of place one would expect to be a major site of anti-Baath protests; rather, it’s the sort of place where mukhabarat guys come from.

So, what happened?

Well, if we believe the first government story, bands of Hariri supporters snuck in from Lebanon with lots of arms and, after spray painting crazy things that no real Syrian would believe, began randomly killing innocent Syrians, in hopes of stirring up sectarian war …

Then, scratch that! The story changed. Now, the bands of Islamic radicals had come in with the express sole desire of raping underage Alawi girls and eating the hearts of Alawi men …

Whoops, that wasn’t it; by now, the party gangs and mukhabarat had tanks and were shelling whole (sunni) neighborhoods … The next version – boradcast widely by al Manar – was that Syrian radical Islamists, inspired by al Qaeda, and following a wahhabi, Salafi doctrine, had seized control of the town and proclaimed an Islamic Emirate. Wahhabi interpretations of Sharia had been put in place; Alawis and Shia were being persecuted by the new rulers …

Ahem, no that’s not it; now, there were large numbers of refugees going in to Lebanon, some being shot as they fled (including elderly women and other obvious militant wahhabis). So that version was forgotten. Now, the problem was easily explained: Tel Kalikh was a center of smuggling operations and cross-border illegal trade and the smugglers had taken advantage of the foreign conspiracy to be more bold in their operations. Noble hearted but out gunned police tried to interdict them; the smugglers started shooting and killing people. So, the government had to send in back up. Naturally, the drugged up members of the foreign conspiracy mistook a simple police action in order to malign the state.

Of course, none of these explanations makes sense: really, the Syrian state decided now to crack down on people buying cheap fuel to sell in Lebanon? Uh huh … really, a Wahhabi emirate in an Alawi majority town?

All of them, of course, are lies but the fact that they keep changing the story shows they know it too.