2/27/11

the "bad bedouin" narrative

There is just waaaaaay too much going on. We assume this is on purpose, part of the plan, designed to confound and disorient. A multiplicity of narratives, dramas, and deceits. A multiplicity of assorted characters with long histories suitable for cherry picking. A plethora of scapegoats to choose from, some new some old.

Remember The Lorax?



"I'm being quite useful.  This thing is a Thneed.
A Thneed's a Fine-Something-That-All-People-Need!
It's a shirt.  It's a sock.  It's a glove.  It's a hat.
But it has OTHER uses.  Yes, far beyond that.
You can use it for carpets.  For pillows!  For sheets!
Or curtains!  Or covers for bicycle seats!"

You know what's great, from the perspective of social engineers, about times like this? What's really great is that NOBODY OUTSIDE THE S.E. LAB CAN AGREE ON A SINGLE THING. Therefore, we are DIVIDED. Therefore, we are rather CONQUERED. Before we even begin. What's not to love? It's win win winwiwiwnwinwiwinwnwin all day long for the Social Engineers. Break out the champagne. Soon they can pull the plug on the busted fiat money machine and blame it all, E V E R Y T H I N G, every iota of fallout imaginable, on the chaos caused by the democracy-seeking peoples of the Arab world, and so forth and so on! For instance, rising gas prices this week? Blame Libya.


LOLZLOZLOZLZOL!!




So, you know, it's great about democracy and all, but all the unrest sure is having some REGRETTABLE consequences. Damn. Even well-meaning people who certainly love democracy and apple pie for everyone might start to resent the consequences after a while of ever-more-expensive gasoline and food.

^^^^^^^


With his penchant for Bedouin tents, heavily armed female bodyguards and Ukrainian nurses, Moammar Gadhafi has cut a showmanlike figure as Libya's leader for more than 40 years.

For most of that time, he also held a prominent position in the West's international rogues' gallery....His love of grand gestures is most on display on foreign visits when he sleeps in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards.
Admit it. You're jealous. He sleeps in a Bedouin tent guarded by dozens of female bodyguards who are all martial arts experts.
Gadhafi's personal bodyguards, known as the Amazonian guard, consisted of young women said to be martial arts experts. They often carried machine guns and sometimes wore military-style uniforms with matching camouflaged headscarves. In 2006, Nigerian authorities stopped dozens of Gadhafi's bodyguards, including members of the female corps, from entering Abuja, the capital, with weapons in a dispute that lasted hours and saw the exasperated Libyan leader storm away from the airport on foot before a compromise was reached.
He wears Bedoin robes. He has a voluptuous blonde Ukranian nurse.

Dapper and handsome in his youth, he cultivated an increasingly flamboyant appearance over the years, donning garish military uniforms with braids and huge, fringed epaulettes or flowing, colorful Bedouin robes and clothing with African patterns, along with sunglasses and fly whisks.  ...A 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable released by the website WikiLeaks cites Gadhafi's heavy reliance on a Ukrainian nurse - described as a "voluptuous blonde" - and his intense dislike of staying on upper floors of buildings, aversion to flying over water and a taste for horse racing and flamenco dancing.
Evidently, he's a narcissist.
Yet he does not appear aware of that, or to care, thereby subjecting the fate of Libya's 6 million people to the foibles of one man's narcissism. 

...Gadhafi suffers "the sense of mission and the sense of personal power that someone has when they've been at the top for a very long time with few people, if anybody, seriously contradicting them," said Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Libya and Iran. He said the Libyan has the classic delusion of absolute rulers who believe, even as citizens abandon them, that the people are at fault.
"He may do something that one calls crazy, but it flows from the internal history and logic of the personality and his experiences," Dalton said.
Born in a Bedouin tent, Gadhafi has known power for virtually his entire adult life.



So we ask you, how is Ghadafi so different from any number of people on the world stage? Is he perhaps a little *more* narcissistic, perhaps a little *less* psychopathic? A tiny bit off the reservation from time to time?

"I don't see him surviving," said Dalton, the former British ambassador. "I suppose you could say that in Shakespearian terms, his vanity is his fatal flaw."
A Fatal Flaw? Now? After all this time?? We will not be going on to defend Ghadafi, but we will point out the HYPOCRISY of powerful people attacking him. Let's put it this way. Flamboyant or not, SOMEHOW, despite all his flaws (fatal or otherwise, plus Lockerbie), he managed to avoid getting whacked for forty years.




"Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak (L) jokes with Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi upon his arrival at Benghazi airport in this August 27, 1991 file photo." National Post


And we are sure it was not A LOVE OF DEMOCRACY that saved his ass all this time.





Leaders remain in power as long as they serve some purpose to the larger agenda. When the agenda changes, and/or their removal serves some other purpose, and/or they fail to cooperate, and/or all of the above, then we get these "situations." We think the agenda has changed. Must be a very big agenda to necessitate all these situations at once.

What we see, in general, is an internecine war among the powerful, at this time, for some reason. A war in which many people have suddenly become INTOLERABLE.

It's nothing personal. It's business. There's a REASON to make all this commotion right now, a BUSINESS REASON.

But for narrative purposes, it has to be personal.

^^^^^^^

You may have heard of the famous Bedouin hospitality.
The hostile desert environment did not just lead to a total dependency between the individual and the clan and to chauvinistic beliefs of the tribe’s superiority, it also obliged to a fabulous hospitality towards other desert travellers.

...The words of the Prophet Muhammad 'whoever believes in God and the day of resurrection, must respect his guest' means that being good to your guest is to honour God and in return God will be good to you.

Although there are no religious sanctions, there are social sanctions and received hospitality always has to be returned.

The Bedouin of Sinai are peace-loving and cultivated, and they are courteous, joyful, fugal and hospitable in spite of their poverty and nonetheless, Bedouin culture still survives in Sinai, where there is a growing appreciation of its value and its fragility.







^^^^^^^

When the events in Egypt began to unfold, we noted the Bedouin narrative appear very quickly in el Arish.


click to enlarge
from a website called hope-of-israel.org

El (Al) Arish is where the water pipeline from the Nile ends. The map shows the location and the proximate town of Lihfen. (Lahfan) Note how close these places are to Gaza.



Also note that the narrative about the Bedoin causing trouble was setting up over a week ago.


1/29/11: Bedouin tribesman have reportedly taken control of two towns in the Sinai Peninsula. These two towns are the closest to the Gaza Strip and right next to the border with Israel. There were reports yesterday that Bedouin tribes had besieged a police station in Suez and it appears that these riots have spread. This would effectively end the Mubarak dictatorship’s control of the region. There are no reports of the Egyptian military stepping in here.

The more disturbing news is a threat that has been made by the tribes if Mubarak does not step down. According to one report coming from Time Magazine, they are willing to attack the Suez Canal if Mubarak does not leave....If there is a credible threat to the Suez Canal or actual stoppage by force, the 1956 invasion comes to mind. When Egyptian dictator Gamel Nasser nationalized the Canal, the combined forces of Britain, France, and Israel took it by force. It is possible that the United States or European powers would consider to retain control of this important waterway.
Laying the narrative groundwork for the sabotage...

Also note, referencing McJ's thread, the details of the pipeline:


"The Arish–Ashkelon pipeline is a 100 kilometres (62 mi) submarine gas pipeline connecting the Arab Gas Pipeline with Israel. Although it is not officially a part of the Arab Gas Pipeline project, it branches off from the same pipeline in Egypt....In 2010, the pipeline is supplying approximately half of the natural gas consumed in Israel, with the other half being supplied from domestic resources."
As became clear later, this very important supply line to Israel was NOT the one that got bombed. Lucky that.

Basically it was a lot of Bad Bedouin narrative on Al Jazeera today:
The narrative there are pursuing here is the tension between the Bedouins and the Egyptian gov in the northern Sinai because they say the gov has not invested the gas revenues back into the area. The Southern Sinai is ok apparently because of tourist revenue. They keep talking about there being a security vacuum in the area and about the smuggling tunnels to Gaza.  ...Reporter at the Rafah crossing saying that the security there is not good. Police have been attacked and are being protected by the military. They are staying indoors. Residents are forming their own neighborhood security as they have no police protection. This is being blamed on the Bedouin who are also responsible the smuggling trade to Gaza.

Here we have the JPostPedia description of el Arish:
Arish or el-Arīsh is the capital and largest city (with 114,900 inhabitants as of 2002) of the Egyptian governorate of North Sinai, lying on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai peninsula, 344 kilometers (214 miles) northeast of Cairo. Al `Arīsh is distinguished by its clear blue water, widespread fruitful palmy wood on its coast, and its soft white sand. It has a marina, and many luxury hotels. The city also has some of the faculties of Suez Canal University. El Arish is by a big wadi called the Wadi el Arish, which receives flash flood water from much of north and central Sinai. http://newstopics.jpost.com/topic/Arish



A gas pipeline, lots of water, soft white sand, luxury hotels... so close, yet so far.

You can see why there must be a problem there, right?

Well, here is El Arish again. This time the Bedouins are accused of raping Africans who are trying to get to Israel, the land of Milk and Honey.
JAFFA, Israel — An Israeli rights group said Wednesday that Bedouin smugglers in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula have raped dozens of African women who they promised to smuggle into Israel over the past year. At least 86 women from Eritrea reported they were raped while in Sinai, which borders Israel, said Ran Cohen, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.
"Some of them are held separately just for this cause (rape)," said Azizet Kidane, an Eritrean nun who interviewed the women on behalf of the organization. None of the women agreed to talk to reporters. Kidane said the number of raped women was likely higher because many women were ashamed to discuss sexual violence.
Et cetera. Horrible treatment. Have you ever heard of such things? Yes, of course. This is human trafficking, a HUGE part of organized crime. We have written about human trafficking many times before. Just do a search if you like. It goes on all over the world, in an organized fashion, because typically that's the way ORGANIZED CRIME RINGS work: the principle of compartmentalization. Some people get the human slaves into the system, other people move them around, still other people pass them through bottlenecks, others make up paperwork, others launder the money, others receive them at the end, others abuse them, others manage to look the other way, etc.

Could some Bedouins be involved in human trafficking? Of course that's possible. Anything is possible.

BUT WHERE EXACTLY IS THE PROOF THAT BEDOUINS RUN THE BRUTAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING RINGS IN THE SINAI, IN EL ARISH?



It's so very simple. The Israeli rights groups said it, and none of the women agreed to talk to reporters.

WHAT MORE PROOF DO YOU NEED?

When questioned about the TIMING of these reports, look what the group leader, Ran Cohen, says:

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=209604
When asked why the two reports had come out in such quick succession, PHR-Israel executive director Ran Cohen said the group’s report was more of a followup to a report it put out in December titled “Hostages, Torture, and Rape in the Sinai Desert.” It stated that “out of 165 abortions facilitated by the clinic between January and November 2010, PHR-Israel suspects that half were request by women who were sexually assaulted in Sinai.”



That's right. They're on it, reporting on all the problems in the Sinai. And after doing all those abortions, the clinic SUSPECTED that half were requested by women who were sexually assaulted in the Sinai. Again, what more proof does one need to blame it all on the Bedouins?

Cohen said that in contrast to the Hotline report, “ours more looks at the breadth of the phenomenon, which is very extensive.” He added that “after the revolution in Egypt, we feel that it is very important to bring this subject to the daily agenda of Israel and the international community so that steps will be taken to fight it.
Indeed.

^^^^^^^

"Looking back, there were few clues in Gadhafi’s 2009 UN speech that would suggest he was anything other than a man of peace. “We are here to decide the future of the world in a democratic way that will maintain world peace and security,” he cooed." Bedouin Sound Bites, unsigned editorial, The Weekend Telegram 2/25/11

See how that Bad Bedouin narrative stretches all the way from Libya to el Arish?


7 comments:

A13 said...

Hi A.P
There is so much going on at the moment it's hard to keep up. Even if you walk away from the PC or TV or radio for a day, like i have just done, you come back and are bombarded in a sence.But I say stuff the sicko social engineers.
Thanks for this post as it was very enlightening, and they do operate on so many fronts that being on top of situations like this,like you are doing really helps with discernment.
Cheers A13

The Realist Report said...

Very interesting piece you've put together. These uprising in the Middle East are intriguing for sure. A harbinger for things to come? An excuse for Israel, the US, NATO, or anyone else to invade and seize strategic resources, land, ect? And then all this business in Pakistan with that criminal Raymond!! Things are heating up, and they don't look too promising for the folks in the Middle East.....

chuckyman said...

It is interesting that the same message is coming from all of the usual sources – including Al-Jazeera. I see that the Egyptian military tried to rough up the protestors. That prompted another mass turn out at Tahrir Square. The show goes on but the actors aren’t following the script.

McJ said...

Thanks for the link AP. You are certainly right about there being "waaaaaay too much going on". It's a labryinth and near impossible to find your way through it.

"We think the agenda has changed. Must be a very big agenda to necessitate all these situations at once.

What we see, in general, is an internecine war among the powerful, at this time, for some reason. A war in which many people have suddenly become INTOLERABLE."

I think you are right about this.

In July 2010 the Daily Mail ran an article titled 'Tony Blair our very special adviser by dictator Gaddafi's son'. In the article they describe the close relationship between Blair and the Gaddafis and his frequent visits to Libya.

"A month before stepping down as PM, Mr Blair visited-Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli again at the same time that BP signed a $900 million deal with the Libyan National Oil Company.[...] Since becoming a part-time Middle East peace envoy on leaving office in 2007, Mr Blair has exploited his contacts to amass a personal fortune in excess of £20 million.
He has a lucrative contract to advise JP Morgan, which pays him £2million a year. Part of his job for them is to develop banking opportunities in Libya. It is understood that British firms Mr Blair is linked to are also being given contracts to tap Libya's massive natural resources, and to help rebuild the country's outdated infrastructure."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1284132/Tony-Blair-special-adviser-dictator-Gaddafis-son.html#ixzz1FH6H8XgA

You have to wonder why they are ditching him now.

Al Jazeera is reporting today that Qaddafi's Ukrainian nurse has 'deserted him' and returned to the Ukraine. I am not sure how they know she 'deserted' him because they said in the same report that so far, she has refused to talk to the press about it.

@ chuckyman
"The show goes on but the actors aren’t following the script."

I like that one! They appear to be going off script in Wisconsin as well. The Wisconsin Police union, WPPA, has reportedly joined the protesters. That's gotta make the show a little harder to manage. And then there are the discoveries that buried inside Walker's bill is a clause that allows the sale of publicly owned utilities plants to the Koch Bros and legislation that could dramatically change the state's Medicaid program.

A. Peasant said...

hello all. it is hard to keep up, but we are thinking it makes sense from 100,000 feet, or in other words, it's about money and the need to have a lot of chaos to explain and cover up and distract from what the banksters are going to do.

Pen has a post on islamic banking. McJ didn't i see you over there... ? ghadafi has been playing along for decades, playing his role as eccentric bad guy. i remember what a badass he supposedly was back in the 80s. and i thought his name also came up in some human trafficking scandal a few years back but i can't remember the search terms. anybody remember?

something like this little bedouin narrative will be used for new enemy creation is my guess. people who are disinclined to do any research will just swallow it whole.

A. Peasant said...

my bad. i was thinking of Zoe's Ark. that's chad and sarkozy. wrong country wrong guy.

chuckyman said...

Hi McJ. It seemed apt (grin). You raise a very valid point. A lot of what could be described as ‘stable’ dictators are getting lined up like ducks in a row. These creatures have been safe hands in the region for many years and they are all getting a collective enema.

The playbook showing on our screens is one of a massive global tearing up of the status quo for a new reality. With the focus turning on pet creatures like Blair, what makes them think they are safe? I bet that is raising the fear factor in certain circles.

legal mumbo jumbo

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