Denial also flows through China

By Peter Lee
Denial is not, as they say, just a river in the land of the great Arab awakening.

China is tempted to overlook the profound and dangerous contradictions in its society and polity and rely on economic growth as the magic elixir.

The United States is not immune, either.

In fact, America's response to the calamities it has experienced and inflicted over the last decade appears to owe more to fear and befuddlement than clarity and determination.

http://ingoringasia.blogspot.com/

What will the West do if Gaddafi wins his little war? Will we send him flowers? Will he still be admitted as a states person (as he should) by the international community or should we beat the crap out of him? May I apologise here for using strong language but the older I get the less time i have to express ideas... After a certain age one is entitled to be a grumpy old man...

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has called for an international investigation into the unrest rocking his country, as forces loyal to him fight hard to hold on to their territory.

In an interview released on Sunday with the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Gaddafi said he wants the United Nations or the African Union to investigate the violence.

"First of all I would like that an investigatory commission of the United  Nations or the African Union comes here to Libya," he said. "We will let this panel work unhampered."

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/2011362186155924.html

In the late 1990s, the Pentagon announced that it would contribute tens of millions of dollars to a 650-bed International Medical Center that the Egyptian military was building in the desert outside Cairo. The money, for medical equipment, training and logistical support, would help improve health care for Egyptian soldiers.

Within a few years, though, an American training team realized that the Egyptian military was benefiting in a different way. The medical center was, as one Pentagon official called it, “a commercial enterprise,” and many of its patients were civilians, not Egyptian soldiers. The hospital was even venturing into medical tourism; its Web site promotes “a lavishly furnished Royal Suite” for international patients.

An American doctor who has worked there, Wayne F. Yakes, recalls what his hosts told him about the hospital: “It was built with U.S. tax dollars under President Bill Clinton.” Put simply, he said, “We bought it for them.”

Eventually, the United States moved to cut off financing and even recoup some of the money, said several former American military officials. The Pentagon, after all, is supposed to pay only for projects with a military purpose.

Yet with Washington giving Cairo $1.3 billion a year in military aid, the hospital episode shows that Egypt’s for-profit military has sometimes found ways to use that aid to further its economic interests. A review of the aid program raises questions about a variety of ventures — from the acquisition of a fleet of luxury Gulfstream jets to a company making Jeeps for commercial sale as well as for the army.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/world/middleeast/06military.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

see toon at top...

Desperate to avoid US military involvement in Libya in the event of a prolonged struggle between the Gaddafi regime and its opponents, the Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it can supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi. The Saudi Kingdom, already facing a "day of rage" from its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community on Friday, with a ban on all demonstrations, has so far failed to respond to Washington's highly classified request, although King Abdullah personally loathes the Libyan leader, who tried to assassinate him just over a year ago.

Washington's request is in line with other US military co-operation with the Saudis. The royal family in Jeddah, which was deeply involved in the Contra scandal during the Reagan administration, gave immediate support to American efforts to arm guerrillas fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan in 1980 and later – to America's chagrin – also funded and armed the Taliban.

But the Saudis remain the only US Arab ally strategically placed and capable of furnishing weapons to the guerrillas of Libya. Their assistance would allow Washington to disclaim any military involvement in the supply chain – even though the arms would be American and paid for by the Saudis.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/americas-secret-plan-to-arm-libyas-rebels-2234227.html

Leading figures at the London School of Economics (LSE) openly joked about getting a donation from Saif Gaddafi before he had even been examined for his PhD, claimed a senior source at the LSE last night.

"Pro-directors" at the school, professors just one rung below the former director Sir Howard Davies, who resigned last month over the scandal prompted by the university's links to Libya, were "anticipating the solicitation of a donation". The academic, speaking to the IoS under condition of anonymity, added: "At really top levels of the school people were joking and very aware he was going to be examined for his PhD and thinking ahead to what that could mean."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/lse-insider-claims-gaddafi-donation-was-lsquoopenly-joked-aboutrsquo-2240488.html

More than 1,000 Saudi troops, part of the Gulf countries' Peninsula Shield Force, have entered Bahrain where anti-regime protests have raged for a month, a Saudi official said.

The troops entered the strategic Gulf kingdom on Sunday, the official said, requesting anonymity.

The intervention came "after repeated calls by the [Bahraini] government for dialogue, which went unanswered" by the opposition, the official said.

According to the regulations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, "any Gulf force entering a member state becomes under the command of the government," the official added.

The Bahraini government has not confirmed the presence of Saudi troops in the archipelago, which is home to the US Fifth Fleet.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/14/3163869.htm?section=justin

WASHINGTON — Even before Saudi Arabia sent troops into Bahrain on Monday to quell an uprising it fears might spill across its own borders, American officials were increasingly concerned that the kingdom’s stability could ultimately be threatened by regional unrest, succession politics and its resistance to reform.

So far, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has successfully stifled public protests with a combination of billions of dollars in new jobs programs and an overwhelming police presence, backed by warnings last week from the foreign minister to “cut any finger that crosses into the kingdom.”

Monday’s action, in which more than 2,000 Saudi-led troops from gulf states crossed the narrow causeway into Bahrain, demonstrated that the Saudis were willing to back their threats with firepower.

The move created another quandary for the Obama administration, which obliquely criticized the Saudi action without explicitly condemning the kingdom, its most important Arab ally. The criticism was another sign of strains in the historically close relationship with Riyadh, as the United States pushes the country to make greater reforms to avert unrest.

Other symptoms of stress seem to be cropping up everywhere.

Saudi officials have made no secret of their deep displeasure with how President Obama handled the ouster of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, charging Washington with abandoning a longtime ally. They show little patience with American messages about embracing what Mr. Obama calls “universal values,” including peaceful protests.

When Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were forced to cancel visits to the kingdom in recent days, American officials were left wondering whether the cause was King Abdullah’s frail health — or his pique at the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15saudi.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

see toon at top and also http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/11941