Would The U.S. Attack Saudi Arabia, If......?

Hantu Laut

Saudi Arabia is a wealthy nation and it would continue to be wealthy as long as the oil lasts and that would be for many years to come.It's sitting on the largest deposit in the world and those in power would not be giving up so easily.

Despite it fabulous wealth most of its young population cannot find jobs in both the public and private sectors.Its wealth has only benefited a small circle of entrepreneurial elite connected to the ruling family.

Each year thousand of graduates remained unemployed.The same elite employers would snub expensive Saudis employees for cheaper foreign labour.At the peak of its economic activities in the mid 2000 the country had almost 6 million expatriate workers in a country of 24 million people.

The country has very young population, almost 45% are under 18, the age of volatility.

The level of corruptions and nepotism in state institutions are mind boggling.Criticism of the king and ruling elites is taboo and those who crossed the red line are thrown in prisons. Bloggers,lawyers,academics and peaceful activists are thrown in jail under the pretext of fighting a war on terror.

On 23 Feb, King Abdullah having spent 3 months abroad undergoing medical treatment returned to Riyadh with a royal largess, welfare promises worth $36 billion to cool the rising temperature of discontent.The king, old and weak, may have been misled on the level of resentment among the population, a demand for genuine political reform, not another round of handouts to buy loyalty.

A month before the king return home, a group of Saudi academics and professionals announced the establishment of a political party and launched a website (sorry ! in Arabic) calling for democracy, elections and respect for human rights.Five of the founding members were immediately thrown in jail.

Saudi Arabia, is one of the most repressive regimes and one of the few surviving absolute monarchy that looked likely to expire if the contagion of the Arab revolution that first ignited in Tunisia and spread to other Arab countries would catch a bad flu in Saudi Arabia.If such uprising occured we may see the Saudi government retaliates with utmost brutality.

The Western powers particularly the United States had intervened and invaded Iraq and
Afghanistan and removed the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the Islamist Taliban.They are now helping rebels to get rid of Gaddafi of Libya by imposing no-fly zone over Libya and bombing Gaddafi's key military installations, all in the name of getting rid of repressive regimes and bringing democracy and human rights to the downtrodden.Gaddafi is no friend.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad has an interesting chapter in his memoirs "A Doctor In The House" on the Europeans, their mindsets and their love for wars.Below is an excrept from his book.

"The art and science of war would be constantly upgraded and improved.It was the Europeans who first clothed their soldiers in uniform, equipped them with even more lethal weapons, organised them in patrol and squads, battalions and brigades and army corps.Their soldiers were drilled into perfect killing machines which would be ready to fight anyone they were ordered to.Theirs was not to reason why:theirs was to do or die.That is their motto"

Mahathir, was not all negatives of the Europeans as many have thought him to be and branded him to be an advocate of anti-West, he gives credit where it is due, as reflected in his paragraph below:

"However, Europeans also have many redeeming characteristics.They can be very caring.They can be dedicated to the truth in science.They can be absolutely honest and considerate.They can be strongly dedicated to justice and fair play"

Over the centuries the Europeans have fought many wars and two of the most destructive world wars originated in Europe.It was the Europeans again that almost brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust during the Cuban missiles crisis.

These nations of belligerents will continue to wage war whenever they found the slightest loophole to go in.The United State, part of the occidental dominions, is now the only super power left after the implosion of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War.

Would the world's most powerful democracy relationship with the world's most repressive regime be put to a test?

Saudi Arabia is rife for a revolution. Should there be an uprising in Saudi Arabia would the United State help the rebels to get rid of the repressive regime of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah and his ruling elites in favour of the rebels or help clamp down the rebellion to protect the regime?

In the name of democracy and human rights?

Let have some answers.

Tan Sri Robert Phang Goes Round and Round Again

At Killiney Kopitiam on the evening of Thursday 17 March, 2011, barely two days away from the UNSC-endorsed military intervention in Libya the world knows as “no fly zone”, about 50 persons listened to the good Tan Sri Robert Phang, the contrast to the bad guy Attorney-General (AG), Gani Patail, in the sock-it-to-me fight over Tajuddin Ramli’s Mas-Kebab swop.

Tajuddin, Executive Chairman of the Malaysian Flag-Carrier, Mas, from 1994 to 2001, was said to have caused the company to lose about RM 8 billion. Though said to have been recommended to be charged in court by the former head of the Commercial Crime Division, the AG hasn’t acted on it yet.

As this saga began to unfold its new chapter in 2009 when well-known blogger, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, ran a series of 10 installments on the Tajuddin’s Mas story, few would have expected the recount of Tajuddin’s embarrassment would light a fire that combusted in the MACC, causing two advisors to burn.

That was the subject of a “Kopitiam Discussion” my old friend, Baha Zain, organized through his outfit, Malaysian Digest, at Killiney Kopitiam on Thursday, a topic few Malaysians followed because of the bad journalism it drew, the bulk of writings on it showing the writers’ emotions and flaunting the what, when, where, who and why that are basic to reporting.

Raja Petra and a few others are exceptions, the former better described as exceptionally gifted.

The discussion at the Kopitiam was not a curtain-raiser. It served instead as a discussion with Tan Sri Robert Phang, and enabling us to see the woods from the trees pertaining to the new chapter of the Tajuddin Saga the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) would want us to believe was intimately interwoven with the selective prosecution of the senior police officer who had recommended that Tajuddin be charged.

Ours is a troubled environment. Trouble has been brewing all over the Muslim world, the new sets in the Mena countries stemming from complaints about police states, dysfunctional institutions, ethnic, religious and gender discriminations, income inequalities and rising prices of food and essential items, all of which are residing in this country too.

Closer to home, in Indonesia, where Muslim extremism has been clobbering the Ahmadiyya and Christian minorities over and over again, someone sent parcel bombs to “moderate Muslims” several days before, taking the country into Takfirism which may lead her into the kind of purgatory Pakistan has become.

There the moderate Muslim Governor of Punjab and a Christian Minister had been killed.

It is turmoil.

The Killiney Kopitiam session with Robert Phang on Thursday, which was somewhat of a jumble because of the varying foci, should have been finally about these – the rotting images of our institutions, beginning with the Police Force which we have been given to believe is divided into factions and a part of which is corrupt or is corruptible.

Then the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has been soured by the death of political assistant, Teoh Beng Hock, in its custody.

Several big fishes the Commission charged failed to be secured by a guilty verdict in court. That brings us to the disappointment with the Attorney-General (AG), Gani Patail.

The AG, Gani Patail, and the former Inspector-General (IGP), Musa Hassan, were implicated in Anwar Ibrahim’s Black Eye Incident in 1998 by the testimony of a senior police officer.

This rounds up why Anwar’s outfit wants the AG and the former IGP dissolved in vitriol, but says nothing about why the MCA big shot, Robert Phang, would want to ride on the fame and flames Raja Petra stands for, first in the making of the Free Anwar Campaign and now in gunning for the people who were believed to have conspired to reduce Anwar to political ashes.

Robert Phang, a big operator in the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) and an advisor to the MACC, walked straight into the amazing swirl of terribly sensitive political events the Anwar outfit had been conjuring, causing a question mark to arise like a zombie in Haiti.

He is a social activist. He continued to crusade until after he had resigned in a huff in January 2011 following a blog accusation he had tried to corrupt a high government official involving a business deal.

He is a big man, a rag-to-riches story that may have once been the president of Magnum and is still the publisher of The Star.

Why did such a big guy take issue against the AG following the writings of the blogger, Raja Petra Kamaruddin? Is he in the outgoing camp in MCA? Or is it about putting the pressure on the government for action to be taken?

Gani, having gone to Mecca for the Hajj last year with Shahidan Shafie, allegedly Tajuddin Ramli’s proxy, was suspected to have become obliged to the businessman who was once a police officer.

But Robert Phang should have been well-disposed to know Raja Petra and his friends in the blog merely suggested Shahidan must have paid for the trip involving Gani and his family.

They had no supporting evidence.

They were again guessing when saying Shahidan had meant to persuade Gani not to prosecute Tajuddin Ramli.

But while Gani Patail had obviously attracted suspicion for the pilgrimage with Shahidan and family, he quickly reacted to a call from the MACC and attended a tell-all meeting on 4 January.

He submitted the receipts collected in his Mecca trip to show he paid for his family from his own pocket.

More than a decade ago the then Chief Justice, Eusoff Chin, had gotten into a crap for his family tour of New Zealand together with Berjaya Corporation lawyer, V.K. Lingam.

It was clear the events were good meat for the PKR spinners and if Phang chose to stay his ground he would be drawing the kind of flak Muammar Gadhafi would not want to think about in Libya.

But he did just that. No matter the fact that Gani Patail had submitted evidences to show he was clean concerning the trip to Mecca, and said he was willing to cooperate should he be investigated, Robert Phang and one other of the attendees were apparently not satisfied.

Chairman of the MACC Corruption Prevention Panel, Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam, issued a statement to the effect that the MACC members who attended this meeting were satisfied with Abdul Gani’s explanation.

There were 30 attendees of 42 invited. As far as this writer is aware, only two persons, i.e. Robert and one other, had protested the statement Ramon made on 4 January after the meeting.

The statement came close to exonerating Gani. Ramon said there was no need to investigate the allegations of Abdul Gani’s connection with former MAS Chairman, Tan Sri Tajuddin’s proxy, En Shahidan Shafie.

Robert Phang blew his top.

But was Ramon’s statement conclusive? Did Ramon carry such weight as to enable him to open or close an MACC enquiry?

Robert Phang was a member of the MACC panel Ramon chaired. He should know the limits of Ramon’s power. Still he acted quickly to reply on 5 January. His statement is given in full below.

I regret Ramon’s statement that - “ MACC members were satisfied
with Abdul Gani’s explanation and found that there was no need to investigate
the allegations”. I also resent Tan Sri Ramon’s statement that - “We found that
there was no case at all to accuse him of being linked to Tajuddin just because
of this Haj trip. It was irresponsible to allege that he was in any way linked.”

I consider Ramon’s statement to be a direct attack on me as I had
earlier called on Abdul Gani to clear the air over public allegations of his
relationship with Shahidan and the Mecca Haj pilgrimage. I was concerned that
Abdul Gani’s silence would fuel deeper suspicions and confusion. (Italics mine)

Ramon can speak for himself but he has no mandate from me or the
other panel members to make that statement on our behalf. That was not how I
perceived the meeting. What was certain was that my esteemed colleagues who
attended the meeting did not want to humiliate Abdul Gani any further. It was
not our intention to humble the Top Lawyer of the country.

It is therefore imperative for Abdul Gani to dispel any suspicion
surrounding his conduct of consorting with Shahidan Shafie and [sic] the Mecca Haj
pilgrimage. The public needs to be satisfied as to why Abdul Gani had not acted
on the recommendations of the then Director of Commercial Crimes Department,
Dato’ Ramli Yusuff, that Tajudin should be prosecuted. Inevitable [sic] the public
already perceived that the AG’s decision to prosecute Dato’ Ramli as an attempt
to cover up the MAS scandal. (italics mine)

Robert Phang invited the fires of hell to be flung at him. It was Raja Petra and several others in Anwar’s outfit who “ …perceived that the AG’s decision to prosecute Dato’ Ramli as an attempt to cover up the MAS scandal,’ but certainly not “the public”. Read more.

Gordon Brown Shocking Inflight Drama

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sparked a mutiny on a British Airways flight after he was blamed for an attempt to downgrade a heavily pregnant woman and Red Cross doctor into more cramped seats.

The extraordinary scenes - dubbed Mutiny On The Brown-ty - unfolded on a flight from Abu Dhabi to London, when passengers lost their seats before his six-strong entourage got on board.

It prompted an angry war of words with an 'aggressive' Brown aide, and led to a formal complaint to BA and an offer of compensation described as 'derisory' by those involved.

The dispute flared when passengers were told they would have to move to a lower class of seats because of a sudden 'overbooking' problem.

When they checked in at Oman, where the flight originated, some of those in business class were told they would have to switch to premium economy, some in premium economy moved to regular economy - and an unlucky few in economy were kicked off the plane altogether.

The seven-months-pregnant woman, who had bought a £700 (RM3,398) premium ticket to secure extra legroom, refused to budge, but her husband was persuaded to shift to economy.

The doctor reluctantly agreed to be moved from business.

During the first, hour-long leg from Oman to Abu Dhabi, the displaced passengers stared resentfully at the six empty seats in business class, known as Club World by BA.

At Abu Dhabi they were livid to see Mr Brown board the plane with his team and take up the £3,000(RM14,500)-a-head places.

The passengers immediately concluded that they had been 'bumped' to make way for Mr Brown, a suggestion the airline strongly denies.

Infuriated, the pregnant woman approached Brown and his aide, Kirsty McNeill, and took a picture of the pair on her mobile, prompting a furious response.

"McNeill was seriously aggressive," said the woman, a high-­powered City financier who does not want to be identified.

"She came over and said, "Why are you taking a photo of Gordon?''

"I said, "I have no interest in Gordon but I have a problem with BA as I suspect we have all been downgraded and messed around because of his and your arrival on this plane."

We have pretty much put an end to privilege. The good things in life are obtained through hard work and effort, not through rank and status.

If you want a more comfortable seat on a plane, then usually you have to hand over a bigger fare in return.

Most people do not bother to do so. The price is high. No normal, healthy person can come to much harm from sitting in economy class for a few hours.

But those who do decide to spend the extra money would seem to have an indisputable claim on the greater leg room and comfort they have bought with hard-earned cash, or which their employers have decided they deserve.

Why should British Airways override this simple commercial arrangement for an
ex-Prime Minister, returning from a long-planned and well-paid engagement, and provide seats for him and his party at the cost of upset and inconvenience to others?

Why does an ex-Premier need an entourage anyway? He is a private citizen. If he is so keen on occupying seats, why doesn’t he take his place in the Commons rather more often.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1370394/MAIL-ON-SUNDAY-COMMENT-Mr-Brown-cattle-class-manners.html#ixzz1HrGoldN9

The Daily Mail

Book Review: A Battling Former Prime Minister's Story

Written by Sholto Byrnes

Friday, 25 March 2011

A Doctor in the House: The Memoirs of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. MPH Group Publishing. RM100. Available at local bookstores. Just over a year ago, I went to Mohamad Mahathir's office on the 86th floor of the Petronas Twin Towers to interview the former Malaysian prime minister about Barry Wain's recently published biography of him. It was a frustrating business. I suggested we begin by talking about "the book." He claimed not to know which one I was talking about – even though the media in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur had been full of it for weeks, not least because at that point the Malaysian authorities were not letting it into the country. So I held up a copy of Malaysian Maverick. "Ah," said Dr M. "Barry Wain. All the bad things I did throughout my 22 years. Nothing good at all." He smiled. "If that is his impression of me, he is welcome to it." I had hoped for some feisty rebuttals of the charges Wain laid against him. This is a man, after all, well known for his pungent put-downs. Indeed, to his admirers (and with qualifications, I am one) his outspokenness is one of his most attractive qualities. But when it came to the key queries, which will be familiar to anyone who has considered his years in office (1981-2003) – the growth of corruption, the emasculation of the judiciary, the retreat of secularism, the silencing and imprisonment of critics – he was fluent, but ultimately evasive. Those hoping to find satisfactory answers in Mahathir's long-gestated 800 page memoir, "A Doctor in the House," will be similarly disappointed. For one of the amusing aspects of this book (although those who have suffered some of the good doctor's harsher ministrations may not find it so), is that when it comes to the main incidents his critics have always latched on to, it seems that Dr M wasn't there. When 106 people were arrested during 1987's Operation Lalang, he tells us, "I was flabbergasted... I thought only a few ringleaders would be taken in... But I could not countermand police orders." Mahathir admits that his finance minister, Daim, "was repeatedly accused of lining his pockets and taking kickbacks from contracts." But what could he do? "People came to see me to complain about him, and when I demanded evidence, they could produce none." As for the dismissal of Tun Salleh Abbas as Lord President of the Supreme Court the following year: it had nothing to do with his criticisms of the government or his lack of pliability. "It was the Agong who instructed me to remove Tun Salleh," writes Mahathir, explaining that the then king felt insulted because Salleh had written to him complaining about noisy building renovations. Dr M realizes that some readers will be "incredulous" that he "was prepared to dismiss the Lord President simply at the Agong's behest and on his personal demand... But that is the truth as to what happened." He rues the fact that he has been "branded a legal vandal" as a result. However, "many see only what they wish to see.... for me that is simply human nature and it has to be accepted." In 1998, Dr M says he was "apprehensive" when the police told him they were going to arrest Anwar Ibrahim – with good reason, since his former deputy then appeared in court with a black eye. "I advised the IGP not to use violence or to handcuff Anwar," he writes, "...it angered people when I suggested that his injury may have been self-inflicted, but I honestly did not think that the police would beat him up, particularly after I had personally instructed the IGP to be careful." He expresses irritation at the way Anwar's trial was conducted, meaning his former protege was "able to score several points and leave many Malaysians convinced that he was the victim of a political conspiracy." But, continues Mahathir, "how anyone could believe this, I really could not understand. To conspire against Anwar in this way I would have had to take the police, the Attorney-General and his prosecutors, their witnesses, the judge, the forensic laboratory experts and many others into my confidence." The problem for Mahathir is that there are many who believe that he was perfectly capable of doing that; or at least, if he did not issue orders personally, that he presided over an administration in which people knew what outcomes he desired and made sure that nothing got in the way. He almost concedes this possibility at one point: "Like it or not, I must accept that this is what Malaysians are like. When you are the top man people will try to read your mind and try to do what they believe you want." This rueful, seemingly powerless stance sits very oddly with a man whose entire career has been marked by such commendable attention to detail that he could even find the time when prime minister to look into why Kuala Lumpur's street lamps did not appear to be properly lit. (Their ill-fitting covers were letting in insects, whose frazzled remnants then obscured the lights. "I pointed out the problem to the Datuk Bandar [mayor] and soon enough the covers were cleaned, and more importantly, kept clean.") His enthusiasm for efficiency, simplification of bureaucracy and ensuring implementation of decisions are well detailed in his memoirs, and no one can doubt that they were needed. Once, when Dr M liked the idea of building a replica of Rome's Spanish Steps near the KL Tower, the Public Works Department despatched a team to study them. Unfortunately, "they could not find the Spanish Steps... because they were sent to Spain". Many will continue to find it hard to believe that one of the most determined and forceful premiers of the late 20th century, who can take much of the credit for pushing and often, it seemed, dragging Malaysia towards developed nation status, willing great construction projects such as the Penang bridge and the Twin Towers into being, and with the strength of personality to stick two fingers up to the IMF during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, could not have known exactly what was going on at every level of his administration. The questions over what Mahathir describes as a "black mark" (Operation Lalang) and other incidents – he recognizes that Anwar has "demonised" him "in the eyes of the whole world" – will not go away and will cast a shadow on his reputation for as long as historians care to examine it. In a wider context this matters a great deal, for while many Malaysians may be ambivalent about their longest-serving prime minister, nearly all of them acknowledge that his achievements were considerable – game-changing for Malaysia, in fact – as well the fact that other aspects of his record were not so creditable. Abroad, however, and especially in Europe and America, the "black marks" are just about all anyone hears about. This is a great pity, as for those who wish to listen Dr Mahathir has highly interesting things to say. His chapter on "The Europeans", for instance, is written from a fascinatingly revisionist perspective – but contains much that one cannot disagree with. He believes that the European taste for warfare fed into the 20th century religion of the market and "the idea that competition will not only establish who the winner is but who is right". A false connection, as he says: "Already they are seeing disaster in their own countries as the free markets wreak havoc on their finances." Pointing to the deaths accompanying new systems of government in Europe (by which he means the world of the white man) over the centuries – republicanism, Communism etc – he claims this stems from the insistence that any new ideology was the best. "They would not only practice the system but would want to force everybody else to do the same. Many who refused would be killed.... Currently they believe that democracy, the free market and a borderless world will create heaven on earth...They invade countries and kill people in order that democracy and its accompaniments be accepted by all." Who can dispute that after the last decade? Again and again, his criticisms of Western hypocrisy hit home, such as his argument that there is nothing equitable about global trade agreements that allow rich countries to penetrate and dominate developing nations' markets, while continuing to subsidise their own industries at home. On Islam, too, if the Western world could temporarily suspend its sensitivities about any mention of "the Jews" (with whom, regrettably, Mahathir does occasionally manage to make himself sound obsessed), they would find much to applaud in what he has said. Repeatedly he has urged his fellow Muslims not to be taken in by literalism, medieval obscurantism and a concentration on the afterlife that ignores the plight and lack of progress of their co-religionists in this world. He claims that it is Islamic to be pacific, to be moderate, tolerant and to seek knowledge. The academic Patricia Martinez once wrote: "In his pragmatic understanding of and agenda for Islam and its umma, Mahathir was the best contemporary leader in the Muslim world." It may be that it didn't quite work out like that at home – in my interview with him, the one point he conceded was that the pressure to be seen as "Islamic" may have grown during his premiership – but Martinez's point still stands. Credit is rarely paid him for that, but it is owed nonetheless.

Read more.