The Awakening Sunni Giant (Recomended)

[al-Hasani]

@al-Hasani you laugh at the zionist plot but they are still working on it. Best be vigilant.

Bro, surely you don't believe that map, do you? Madinah under Jewish control? (again)

The easiest way to score some easy points is to pick at the Jews. It's getting old.

We are fellow Semitic people (the real Jews), neighbors since ancient times, we will continue to be neighbors, Jews are among the People of the Book, share more things in common than we both would like to admit such as religion, language, some customs - religious and non-religious etc. We have to find a way to live in peace.

Let us not forget that 25% of Israel's population is Palestinian Arab and it is only growing. Moreover nearly 50% of all Jews are Jews from Arab backgrounds (Arab countries) who are called Mizrahi Jews.

Jews will simply not allow another Holocaust. The Palestine-Israel issue must be solved and of course I will support our Palestinian Muslim and Arab brothers in case of a all-out conflict but to be honest then it is better for the Palestinians to get their own country AND live in peace so they can prosper for the first time in 70 years.

Al-Quds must be dealt with though once and for all.

 

[al-Hasani]

Why do non-Arabs and outsiders think that the Al-Saud family are some kind of medieval tyrants that are reminiscent of the European autocracies and absolute monarchies from between 1500-1919 (in some countries)?

The Al-Saud family was a nationwide MOVEMENT were whole towns, tribes and regions in current day KSA pledged their allegiance to. They rule with legitimacy. They have a 300 year old history as rulers and they have formed modern day KSA more than anyone else. Before it was heavily divided regions with their own rulers, policies and to certain extent even cultures. Today only a geographical, linguistic (dialects) and to a smaller extent cultural barriers remain, aside from a religious one (different sects albeit in only a few regions). We are all Arabs though. KSA is a very big and diverse country in terms of all that. Many just don't know it. We have all sects in our lands, nearly. More than anyone else.

This is not like that Iranian Shah whose father was a ordinary officer and who took the throne out of nowhere.

No the Al-Saud family conquered their lands and won the battles of power that were typical of EVERY single society 250-300 years ago or even 100-80 years when they united KSA and thus created it. Regional vassal states to foreigners etc. got defeated.

The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is a highly respected figure across the country and he enjoys immense popularity more than any other ruler I can think of. We are not talking about North Korea here.

We Saudis are those who use Twitter and Facebook the MOST in the whole of the Muslim world. In fact in terms of users percentage wise we are only behind USA or even tops it. Don't recall the latest statistics on that. We know what is happening in the world.

There will be no Western-styled democracy in the land of Makkah and Madinah. People need to get that into their heads once and for all.

KSA is not a ordinary country.

 

[FaujHistorian]

.....

Al-Quds must be dealt with though once and for all.

Please go visit Al-Quds. Al-Quds is just fine. I had great time.

Let's not put it as "dealt with once and for all".

 

[al-Hasani]

Please go visit Al-Quds. Al-Quds is just fine. I had great time.

Let's not put it as "dealt with once and for all".

Deal with it as in "the current issues that create division must be solved". What where you thinking I referred to?

Anyway I have to go to bed right now since I have a early flight to catch - direction Nice, Southern France.

 

[FaujHistorian]

.....
There will be no Western-styled democracy in the land of Makkah and Madinah. People need to get that into their heads.

KSA is not a ordinary country.

No country is "ordinary" then why to say this about KSA.


West doesn't have a dictatorial exclusive hold over the idea of Democracy.

Democratic ideals belong to all humanity. And it has been evolving for a long long time since the time of greeks at least (if not before them).

So it will be insane to say that "There will be no Western-styled democracy in the land of Makkah and Madinah".


These type of childish statements only help strengthen stereotypes about Arabs in general and Saudis in particular.

I'd avoid such statements in future if possible.


On one hand you proudly talk about adoption of Western style things such as fb and twitter,

then on the very next moment you turn around and yap against the very west.


you know why?

Because you think West doesn't have an exclusive hold on fb and twitter.

And you are right if you thought so.


the only problem is that you are denying yourself and your nation, the core concepts and ideals that produce fb and twitter and google and internet and I-phone.

It is always a package deal.

You can't just be a blind user of Western products,

and yet

refuse to accept that they have evolved pretty good system of governance and economic management.

Nothing is perfect. But democratic system (even within constitutional monarchy) works very very well.

This is why most of the world has abandoned the kings and queens unless those kings and queens were willing to change with time.


peace

 

[Zarvan]

Michael Weiss
June 21, 2013

The Awakening Sunni Giant

Saudi Arabia is dead-serious about ending the Assad regime

Saudi and Gulf leaders meet in Riyadh in March to discuss the deteriorating situation in Syria. (Image via AFP)

Last Friday, King Abdullah cut short his summer vacation in Morocco and flew back to Riyadh not only to meet with his national security advisors but to coordinate a new strategy for winning the war in Syria, one that encompasses a unified regional bloc of Sunni-majority powers now ranged against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime. The Wahhabi kingdom has exhausted its patience with miscarried attempts to resolve the Syria crisis through diplomacy and it will not wait to see the coming battle in Aleppo play out before assuming control of the Syrian rebellion. State-backed regional efforts to bolster moderate Free Syrian Army elements will thus be joined with the fetid call to jihad emanating from clerical quarters in Cairo, Doha, Mecca, and beyond. The mullahs have only themselves to blame. “Nasrallah f-cked up,” one well-connected Syrian source told me recently. “He awakened the Sunni giant. The Saudis took Hezbollah’s invasion of Qusayr personally.”

Although long in coming, and evidenced in the recent contretemps between Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, this grand realignment has been unmistakably solidified in the last week. A day after the Saudi king returned to Riyadh, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi severed all diplomatic ties with Damascus and called for a no-fly zone in Syria, leaving no mystery as to reason behind this decision. “Hezbollah must leave Syria – these are serious words,” the Islamist president said. “There is no space or place for Hezbollah in Syria.”

Then, on Monday, June 17, it was Jordanian King Abdullah’s turn to strike a minatory, albeit more nationalistic, note. Ostensibly addressing cadets at a graduation ceremony at Mutah Military Academy, the Hashemite monarch was in fact speaking to Barack Obama and Bashar al-Assad: “If the world does not mobilize or help us in the issue [of Syria] as it should, or if this matter forms a danger to our country, we are able at any moment to take measures that will protect our land and the interests of our people.”

Unlike Morsi, who doesn’t have half a million Syrian refugees to contend with, Abdullah’s deterrent capability is not confined to persona non grata diktats and rhetorical posturing. Operation Eager Lion, the 12-day military exercise featuring the United States and 19 Arab and European countries, is currently underway in Jordan. Around 8,000 personnel – including commandos from Lebanon and Iraq who will no doubt be fighting some of their compatriots in any deployment into Syria – are given lessons on border security, refugee management, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism warfare. Patriot missile batteries and anywhere between 12 and 24 American F-16 fighter jets were left in Jordan as a multilateral insurance policy against Syrian, Iranian, or Hezbollah provocations. This royal Abdullah is more in sync than ever with his namesake to the south.

If further proof were needed of Riyadh’s newfound earnestness about ending Assad’s reign, look no further than a recent column by Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist seen as quite close to Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former director general of Saudi intelligence who himself has described Hezbollah and Iraq’s Shiite Abu Fadhl al-Abbas Brigade in Syria as Iran’s “steel claws.” On June 15, Khashoggi published “The expanding Shiite Crescent” in al-Hayat. The piece can only be described as something between a Sunni cri de coeur and a Sunni fever-dream. Khashoggi begins by warning of creeping Iranian hegemony in the Levant, which is of course driven as much by energy and commercial interest as it is by ideology. Allow Assad victory and here’s what will happen, according to Khashoggi:

“The Iranian Oil Ministry will pull out old maps from its drawers to build the pipeline to pump Iranian oil and gas from Abadan (across Iraq) to Tartus. The Iranian Ministry of Roads and Transportation will dust off the national railways authority’s blueprints for a new branch line from Tehran to Damascus, and possibly Beirut. Why not? The wind is blowing in their favor and I am not making a mountain out of a molehill.”

As against Hafez’s careful balancing of Sunni and Shiite interests, Khashoggi concludes, the dangerous Bashar has submitted completely to Iran and their Lebanese proxy. “Consequently, Saudi Arabia must do something now, albeit alone. The kingdom’s security is at stake. It will be good if the United States joined an alliance led by Saudi Arabia to bring down Assad and return Syria to the Arab fold. But this should not be a precondition to proceed. Let Saudi Arabia head those on board.” [Italics added.]

According to Elizabeth O’Bagy, the policy director at the Syrian Emergency Task Force and a senior research analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, the Saudis had a closed-door meeting with Gen. Salim Idris, the head of the Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Command, a few days ago, at which they offered to do “whatever it takes” to help Idris defeat Assad and his growing army of Shiite-Alawi sectarian militias. Though, this being a Saudi promise, “whatever it takes” can still be defined relatively: the discussion was limited to weapons, more resources and logistical support, O’Bagy said, though some of the hardware has already begun to materialize.

One unnamed Gulf source cited by Reuters has claimed that the Saudis have begun running shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles (MANPADs) into Syria. Furthermore, at least 50 “Konkurs,” Russian-made, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, have also turned up in Aleppo in the last week, as confirmed by the Daily Telegraph’s Mideast correspondent Richard Spencer (Konkurs are especially useful in destroying T-72 tanks, the most recent Soviet-era model that the Syrian Army uses.)

More intriguing still is the Western power evidently facilitating this campaign – France. Israeli Army Radio reported this week that French intelligence officials are working with their Saudi counterparts to train up rebels on tactics and weaponry, in concert with the Turkish Defense Ministry (no doubt because Turkish supply-lines to Aleppo are now even more crucial.) Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and mukhabarat head Prince Bandar bin Sultan (also the former Saudi ambassador to the United States and King Abdullah’s national security advisor), have traveled to Paris in urgent fits of shuttle diplomacy of late.

“The French have been really, really pro-active in pushing for greater action,” O’Bagy told me. “They have a lot of really active people on the ground.” The same Gulf source who told Reuters about anti-aircraft missiles bound for Syria also said they were “obtained from suppliers in France and Belgium, and France had paid to ship them to the region.” The Hollande government maintains that it hasn’t decided whether or not to arm the rebels yet, but here it should be noted, as O’Bagy has elsewhere, that the U.S. was gun-running before it ambiguously announced last week that it would (maybe) begin doing so.

Indeed, the Saudi-French concord provides some much needed context for the Obama administration’s adherence to the status quo ante. This has been amusingly characterized by some commentators in near apocalyptic language. The White House is still only interested in guiding a process absent direct involvement in it. Everyone from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey to the president has loudly rejected the prospect of air strikes or a no-fly zone. (These “realists” fail to realize that the surest way to limit argument to arm the FSA is to destroy the regime’s own Iranian and Russian resupply capability – ah, but that would require dropping bombs and we can’t have that, can we?)

Having thus determined that the Syria crisis was not in the U.S. “national interest,” the administration conveniently forgot about the national interests of its allies, all of whom lament the geopolitical vacuum left by a vanishing American presence and greatly fear the elements now rushing in to fill it. So instead, Washington palavers with Moscow about “Geneva II”, a conference set to resemble the last half hour of Rocky IV, as the war proceeds uninterrupted on the ground. Witness the buildup of Syrian Army soldiers and militants from Hezbollah and the Iranian-sponsored Popular Committees and the National Defense Forces in the Aleppo towns of Nubul and Zahra’a. Between 3,000 and 4,000 Hezbollah fighters, abetted by IRGC agents, are amassed in the province ready to try a repeat of their last victory in Qusayr.

Congratulations are in order. The United States has just earned a court-side seat to exactly the kind of transnational Sunni-Shiite confrontation it wished to avoid.

Saudi Arabia and all Muslim countries should jointly strike in Syria with air force and destroy assads army and air force

 

[RescueRanger]

Saudi Arabia and all Muslim countries should jointly strike in Syria with air force and destroy assads army and air force

And what the hell with that achieve? What gives U, ME or anyone else the right to meddle in anyone else's affairs? Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the rest of the so called "Muslim World" should check their own back yard before they go poking their noses in other people's business.

As for Pakistan, man there is so much **** wrong with our country. If i so much as hear a politician talk about Palestine, Syria or some other random nation in stife, i am going to explode. Fix the god damn electricity crisis, make fuel affordable, print cheaper books, make milk cheaper, provide better healthcare and generate jobs.

When you have done that, maintain that for a pace of 20/30 years, then we can start talking about assisting anyone, charity begins at home and right now this home looks like something out of the projects.

 

[FaujHistorian]

Saudi Arabia and all Muslim countries should jointly strike in Syria with air force and destroy assads army and air force

Saudi Arabia alone cannot do that.

pakistanis should lead the charge by supplying 100,000 troops, ask KSA to supply air force, and Jordan and Turkey to supply logistics.

Assad the butcher will be history in 2 months.

But we won't.


Because we the Paks just talk $hit and kill each other by supporting Talib@stards.


Priorities my dear priorities.


peace

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

Here you are entirely mistaken, Certainly being blind as in irrational is to be avoided - however when speaking of extremism in all Muslim majority countries, and to not assert that whether in the North African case or Nigeria, the Inspiration is Wahabism/Salafism, or to not assert that in South Asia it is Wahabism/Salafism or that in Syria it is not Wahabism/Slafism, is simply being dishonest.

I would most certainly agree that Shiie groups such as hibzullah are certainly sectarian, however it is a difficult case to make that such groups are insistent that all convert to their sect or die.

Salafis are Muslims and just follow strict interpretation and sometimes extreme interpretations, moderate Muslims disagree with them but those 1.5 Sunni who happen to represent Islam would never consider them heretics, pagans or Kufar. I believe that minorities should respect others so they themselves get majority recognition rather than getting more and more alienated.

 

[al-Hasani]

Using Twitter and Facebook has nothing to do with democracy. Not more than talking with people face to face or writing letters. Also I don't accept things being "Western". Those people would still live in caves had it not been for us Middle Easterners. One just need to read about Al-Andalus to take a fairly new example.

Western-styled democracy is unwanted and we do not want it. We do not want or accept gay marriages in mosques, soft penalties, communistic parties and other nonsense. As long as I am alive I will fight against such *****. Don't care how others view that. We follow Islam and will remain truth to that. Makkah and Madinah will stay forever too and it is outrageous to think that a WESTERN-STYLED democracy would harmonize with that. Nightclubs, strip clubs, gay bars and alcohol shops in Makkah and Madinah? You must be kidding?

A constitutional monarchy is all fine for me as long as the rule will be effective as today. On the other hand I don't want us to follow in the footsteps of so-called "Middle Eastern democracies" like Iraq and Yemen that are big political chaoses due to all the different political parties.

President, Prime Minister, King whatever is all the same. Especially in our part of the world. Still rampant corruption in Pakistan despite it being a "democracy".

In fact all the kingdoms in the Middle East have proven to be much more effective, better and more stable than so-called republics. Even the republics have been hijacked by lunatics like Gaddafi and the Child-Murderer in Syria and his dog of a father before him. Just look at Jordan which is not rich in resources. They are leading in many fields. Not by a coincidence really.

Anyway I don't believe that WESTERN styled democracy is something everyone should follow.

In fact most country do not. Including the most populous and successful currently - China.

We Muslims believe that Islam is democracy in itself so we don't need Western man-made ideas and imitate them. It's not part of our heritage. If people want that kind of ideas they are free to move to Europe or the West.

Oh, Facebook was created by that Jewish-American so in theory he is not "Western" apart from being born in the US.

 

[FaujHistorian]

And what the hell with that achieve? What gives U, ME or anyone else the right to meddle in anyone else's affairs?.

If in June 2013, anyone thinks Syrian fiasco is someone's internal affair, he/she must go get his/her head examined by a competent person.

Syrian system has collapsed.


And they need urgent help in restoring peace.


Governments can stand around and watch Syria burn at the hands of incompetent individuals (Assad the butt-cher and FSA), or go in and bring peace the now fully forked country.


peace

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

Saudi Arabia alone cannot do that.

pakistanis should lead the charge by supplying 100,000 troops, ask KSA to supply air force, and Jordan and Turkey to supply logistics.

Assad the butcher will be history in 2 months.

But we won't.


Because we the Paks just talk $hit and kill each other by supporting Talib@stards.


Priorities my dear priorities.


peace

We know how Pakistanis are brave and honorable fighters, but you ridiculously underestimate others man, What do you mean by Saudis cann't do this or that? Just because they needed help decades ago you will hold that against them forever? Nonsense.

 

[FaujHistorian]

......

Western-styled democracy is unwanted and we do not want it. We do not want or accept gay marriages in mosques, soft penalties, communistic parties and other nonsense.....

Now you are confusing a democratic system with a day time soap-opera.

Please get educated a bit of what really is democracy, and why it is good "in the long run" for any country.

peace


ps. China too will move on. They have become 100% Westernized already. Their system of government has changed big time, and will continue evolving.

Anyone stuck in cave age mentality is doomed.

 

[RescueRanger]

If in June 2013, anyone thinks Syrian fiasco is someone's internal affair, he/she must go get his/her head examined by a competent person.

Syrian system has collapsed.


And they need urgent help in restoring peace.


Governments can stand around and watch Syria burn at the hands of incompetent individuals (Assad the butt-cher and FSA), or go in and bring peace the now fully forked country.


peace

How about this, imagine a house where the mother is sick the children are starving and the father is jobless, yet he spends every last penny and every waking hour focused on the problems of those sitting next door?

Who requires the psychological examination? The person stating reason, or the person wanting to play hero and deliver justice "next door"?

 

[FaujHistorian]

We know how Pakistanis are brave and honorable fighters, but you ridiculously underestimate others man, What do you mean by Saudis cann't do this or that? Just because they needed help decades ago you will hold that against them forever? Nonsense.

Calm down kid. you are now going into confrontation where none is needed.

My point was directed towards a Pakistani poster to make him realize that it is easy to say KSA do this, and KSA do that. We gotta put our money where our mouth is.

I was careful to included other countries in the list to make sure I am not trying to prove something.

read your stuff before posting in future.

thank you.