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サウジ王家周辺事件に関するロバート・フィスクの独立系記事を緊急配信されたので転載する。
A growing insurrection against the Saudi royals/ By ROBERT FISK/10 November
2003/The Independent - London
A growing insurrection against the Saudi royals
By ROBERT FISK.
10 November 2003
The Independent - London
OSAMA BIN Laden has an awful lot of friends in Saudi Arabia. In
the mosques, among the disenchanted youth, among the
security forces, even - and this is what the West declines to
discuss - within the royal family. Saudi ambassadors routinely
dismiss these facts as "unfounded" but Saturday's devastating
attack in the capital, Riyadh, is part of a growing insurrection
against Bin Laden's enemies in the House of Saud.
Whether or not the bombers were members of the Saudi security
forces - they were certainly wearing Saudi military uniforms -
the Riyadh government's own version of the "war on terror" is
now provoking bombings, gun battles and killings almost every
day in the kingdom. The dead were all apparently Muslims,
most of them expatriate workers.
The enemies of the House of Saud want to make the kingdom
ungovernable - just as America's enemies in Iraq want to make
US occupation ineffective. Iraqis are still the principal victims of
the bombings in Baghdad, just as the Saudis were the principal
victims on Saturday night. After years of procrastination, the
Saudi authorities are passing on some of their intelligence to
the United States. For once, the latest warning from Washington
- that al-Qa'ida's next attack was moving from the "theoretical"
to the "operational" stage - was spot on the mark. But the Saudi
royal family provided plenty of reasons during the
Anglo-American invasion of Iraq this year for their Arab
enemies to attack them. For although they publicly maintained
that the US would not use Saudi military facilities during the
war, they quietly allowed the Americans to direct 2,700 air
sorties a day from the huge Prince Sultan air base. Far more
damagingly, they even gave secret permission for 200 US
combat aircraft at the base to fly 700 combat missions over Iraq
daily. The Jordanians suspect the bombing of their embassy in
Baghdad this summer was retaliation for a secret military
operation in which 26 US F/A-18 fighter bombers flew missions
from a Jordanian air base to bomb Iraqi air force facilities. So,
Crown Prince Abdullah, in effect the ruler of Saudi Arabia, must
be feeling some frightening winds blowing across the Saudi
desert this winter. For by a weird coincidence, Bin Laden's
principal aim to destroy the royal family is shared by the
American right wing. When Laurent Murawiec, a friend of the
then US defence policy board chairman Richard Perle, gave his
odd but damning assessment of Saudi Arabia as an enemy of
the United States and the "Kernel of Evil" he might have been a
spokesman for Bin Laden. Mr Murawiec, who works with the
Rand corporation and who has been an executive editor of
Executive Intelligence Revue - owned by Lyndon La Rouche Jr,
convicted felon - presented a slide show to the Pentagon last
year with titles that included "taking `Saudi' out of Arabia". He
claimed that Saudis were seen by other Arabs as "lazy,
overbearing, dishonest, corrupt" and that they are "active at
every level of the terror chain", from financier to foot soldier.
There persists in Washington the suspicion that the Saudi royal
family is still trying to compromise with the religious hierarchy
and with its al-Qa'ida enemies. The Pentagon and the CIA, for
example, remain angry that Saudi clerics allegedly named on
one of Bin Laden's videotapes as supporting the 11 September
attacks are still preaching freely in Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's
messages are still laced with venom for the House of Saud.
Indeed, his original - and still most important - aim is to do
what Laurent Murawiec demanded: to take the "Saudi" out of
Arabia. Now it looks as if his erstwhile protectors have
abandoned him when his side of the royal family are in far
greater peril. Could this be true? Could the Americans sit back
and watch al-Qa'ida take over the nation's oil wells? There are
those in the House of Saud who take a particularly fearful view
of American policy. In the past, they say, the Americans could
sit in Saudi Arabia and seize the Iraqi oilfields whenever they
chose to cross the border. Now they are in Iraq, they can - in the
event of a revolution - just drive in the other direction and seize
the oilfields in northern Saudi Arabia, leaving Riyadh and other
cities to whichever Arabian ruler takes control.
----
Riyadh - a new front against US.
By ROBERT FISK.
10 November 2003
The Independent - London
OSAMA BIN Laden has an awful lot of friends in Saudi Arabia. In
the mosque, among the disenchanted youth, among the security
forces, even - and this is what the West declines to discuss -
within the royal family. Saudi ambassadors routinely dismiss
these facts as "unfounded" but Saturday's devastating attack in
the capital, Riyadh, is part of a growing insurrection against Bin
Laden's enemies in the House of Saud.
Whether or not the bombers were members of the Saudi security
forces - they were certainly wearing Saudi military uniforms -
the Riyadh government's own version of the "war on terror" is
now provoking bombings, gun battles and killings almost every
day in the kingdom. The 11 dead were all apparently Muslims,
most of them expatriate workers.
The enemies of the House of Saud want to make the kingdom
ungovernable - just as America's enemies in Iraq want to make
US occupation ineffective. Iraqis are still the principal victims of
the bombings in Baghdad, just as Saudis were the principal
victims on Saturday night.
Clearly, after years of procrastination, the Saudi
authorities are passing on some of their own intelligence to the
United States. For once, the latest warning from Washington -
that al Qa'ida's next attack was moving from the "theoretical" to
the "operational" stage was spot on the mark. But the Saudi
royal family - that part of it which is still desperate for American
assistance - provided plenty of reasons during the
Anglo-American invasion of Iraq this year for their Arab
enemies to attack them.
For although they publicly maintained that the US would not
use Saudi military facilities during the war, they quietly allowed
the Americans to direct 2,700 air sorties a day from the huge
Prince Sultan Air Base - far more damagingly, they even gave
secret permission for 200 US combat aircraft at the base to fly
700 combat missions over Iraq daily.
The Jordanians suspect that the bombing of their embassy in
Baghdad this summer was retaliation for a secret military
operation in which 26 US F/A-18 fighter bombers flew missions
from a Jordanian air base to bomb Iraqi air force facilities that
might be capable of firing missiles at Israel.
So, Crown Prince Abdullah, the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia,
must be feeling some frightening winds blowing across the
Saudi desert this winter. For by a weird coincidence, Osama bin
Laden's principal aim to destroy the royal family is shared by
the American right wing. When Laurent Murawiec, the friend of
the then US defence policy board chairman Richard Perle, gave
his odd but damning assessment of Saudi Arabia as an enemy of
the United States and the "Kernel of Evil" he might have been a
spokesman for Bin Laden.
Mr Murawiec, a somewhat mysterious figure who works with the
Rand corporation and has been an executive editor of Executive
Intelligence Revue - owned by convicted felon Lyndon La Rouche
Jr - presented a slide show to the Pentagon last year with titles
that included "taking `Saudi' out of Arabia". He claimed that
since 1745, 58 per cent of all Saudi rulers have met a violent
demise, that Saudis are seen by other Arabs as "lazy,
overbearing, dishonest, corrupt" and that they are "active at
every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from
cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheer leader.
There persists in Washington the suspicion the Saudi royal
family is still trying to compromise with the country's religious
hierarchy and with it's al-Qa'ida enemies. The Pentagon and the
CIA, for example, remain angry that Saudi clerics allegedly
named on one of Bin Laden's video tapes as supporting the 11
September attacks are still preaching freely in Saudi Arabia. Bin
Laden's messages are still laced with venom for the House of
Saud. Indeed, his original - and still most important - aim is to
do what Laurent Murawiec demanded: to take the "Saudi" out of
Arabia.
Now it looks as if his erstwhile protectors have abandoned him
when his side of the royal family are in far greater peril. Could
this be true? Could the Americans sit back and watch al-Qa'ida
take over the nation's oil wells? There are those in the House of
Saud who take a particularly fearful view of American policy. In
the past, they say, the Americans could sit in Saudi Arabia and
seize the Iraqi oil fields whenever they chose to cross the
border. Now they are in Iraq, they can - in the event of a
revolution - just drive in the other direction and seize the oil
fields in northern Saudi Arabia, leaving Riyadh and other cities
to whichever Arabian ruler takes control.
----
How we denied democracy to the Middle East.
By ROBERT FISK.
8 November 2003
The Independent - London
We created this place, weaned the grotesque dictators. And we
expect the Arabs to trust Bush's promise?
It gets weirder and weirder. As his helicopters are falling out of
the sky over Iraq, President Bush tells us things are getting even
better. The more we succeed, he says, the deadlier the attacks
will become. Thank God the Americans now have a few - a very
few - brave journalists, like Maureen Dowd, to explain what is
happening.
The worse things are, the better they get. Iraq's wartime
information minister, "Comical Ali", had nothing on this; he
claimed the Americans weren't in Baghdad when we could see
their tanks. Bush claims he's going to introduce democracy in
the Middle East when his soldiers are facing more than
resistance in Iraq. They are facing an insurrection.
So let's take a look at the latest lies. "Sixty years of Western
nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the
Middle East did nothing to make us safe," he told us on
Thursday. "Because in the long run, stability cannot be
purchased at the expense of liberty." Well said, Sir. George Bush
Jr sounds almost as convincing as, well, Tony Blair. It's all a lie.
"We" - the West, Europe, America - never "excused and
accommodated" lack of freedom. We endorsed lack of freedom.
We created it in the Middle East and supported it.
When Colonel Ghaddafi took over Libya, the Foreign Office
thought him a much sprightlier figure than King Idriss. We
supported the Egyptian generals (aka Gamal Abdul Nasser) when
they originally kicked out King Farouk. We - the Brits - created
the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan. We - the Brits - put a
Hashemite King on the throne of Iraq. And when the Baath party
took over from the monarchy in Baghdad, the CIA obligingly
handed Saddam's mates the names of all senior communist
party members so they could be liquidated.
The Brits created all those worthy sheikhdoms in the Gulf.
Kuwait was our doing; Saudi Arabia was ultimately a joint
Anglo-US project, the United Arab Emirates (formerly the Trucial
State) etc. But when Iran decided in the 1950s that it preferred
Mohammed Mossadeq's democratic rule to the Shah's, the CIA's
Kim Roosevelt, with Colonel "Monty" Woodhouse of MI6,
overthrew democracy in Iran. Now President Bush demands the
same "democracy" in present-day Iran and says we merely
"excused and accommodated" the loathsome US-supported
Shah's regime.
Now let's have another linguistic analysis of Mr Bush's words.
"The failure of Iraqi democracy," he told us two days ago, "would
embolden terrorists around the world, increase dangers to the
American people, and extinguish the hopes of millions in the
region." Here's another take: the failure of the Bush
administration to control Israel's settlement-building on Arab
land would embolden terrorists around the world, increase
dangers to the American people and extinguish the hopes of
millions in the region. Now that would be more like it. But no.
President Bush thinks Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is "a
man of peace".
And then there's that intriguing Bush demand for a revolution
in undemocratic Iran. Sure, Iran is a theocratic state (a
necrocracy, I suspect), but the morally impressive President
Mohamed Khatami, repeatedly thwarted by the dictatorial old
divines, was democratically elected - and by a far more
convincing majority than President George Bush Jr in the last US
presidential elections.
Yes, "democracy can be the future of every nation", Bush tells us.
So why did his country support Saddam's viciousness and war
crimes for so many years? Why did Washington give its blessing,
at various stages, to Colonel Ghaddafi, Hafez Assad of Syria, the
Turkish generals, Hassan of Morocco, the Shah, the sleek Ben Ali
of Tunisia, the creepy generals of Algeria, the plucky little King
of Jordan and even - breathe in because the UNOCAL boys
wanted a gas pipeline through Afghanistan - the Taliban?
A break here. Fouad Siniora is the finance minister of Lebanon.
He is a believer in the American way of life, a graduate of the
American University of Beirut and a former lecturer there, an
ex-executive of Citibank. He has a valid American visa in his
passport. Yet he has been telephoned by the American embassy
in Beirut to be told he will not be permitted entry to the US.
Why? Because last year he gave $660 at a Ramadan fast-breaking
iftah to a charity that runs educational projects and orphanages
in Lebanon. The organisation is run by Sayed Mohamed
Fadlallah - once described by the Western press as the "spiritual
adviser" to Hizbollah. CIA sources long ago revealed that they
tried to kill Fadlallah - they failed, but their Saudi-prepared car
bomb killed 75 civilians - so Siniora, an Americanophile to his
fingertips, is persona non grata in the US. Fadlallah is not
Hizbollah's "spiritual adviser" - so he could hardly withdraw his
support for its victory over the Israeli army in Lebanon three
years ago - but the loony-tune "security" legislation in the US has
deprived Siniora of any further contact with a country he
admires.
Yes, roll on democracy. Bring 'em on. The new "Rummyworld"
war on terror is in Iraq. Ban the press from filming the return of
dead American soldiers to the US. Liberty is what it's about,
democracy. "Accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle
East", indeed. We created this place, drew its borders, weaned
their grotesque dictators. And we expect the Arabs to trust Mr
Bush's promise?
----
Since when did `Arab' become a dirty word?
By ROBERT FISK.
4 November 2003
The Independent - London
In Australia they're even trying to prevent Hanan Ashrawi from
receiving the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize
Is "Palestinian" now just a dirty word? Or is "Arab" the dirty
word? Let's start with the late Edward Said, the brilliant and
passionate Palestinian-American academic who wrote - among
many other books - Orientalism, the ground-breaking work
which first explored our imperial Western fantasies about the
Middle East. After he died of leukaemia last month, Zev Chafets
sneered at him in the New York Daily News in the following
words: "As an Episcopalian, he's ineligible for the customary 72
virgins, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's honoured with a
couple of female doctoral graduates."
According to Chafets, who (says the Post) spent 33 years "in
politics, government and journalism" in Jerusalem, Orientalism
"rests on a simple thesis: Westerners are inherently unable to
fairly judge, or even grasp, the Arab world." Said "didn't blow up
the Marines in Lebanon in 1983 ... he certainly didn't fly a plane
into the World Trade Centre. What he did was to jam America's
intellectual radar."
When I read this vicious obituary, I recalled hearing Chafets'
name before. So I turned to my files and up he popped in 1982,
as former director of the Israeli government press office in
Jerusalem. He had just published a book falsely claiming that
Western journalists in Beirut - myself among them - had been
"terrorised" by bands of Palestinians. He even claimed my old
friend Sean Toolan, who was murdered by a jealous husband
with whose wife he was having an affair, was killed by
Palestinians because they disapproved of a US television
programme about the PLO.
So I got the point. You can kick a scholar when he's dead if he's a
Palestinian, and kick a journalist when he's dead if you want to
claim he was murdered by Palestinians. But now the same sick
fantasies are taking hold in Australia, where a determined effort
is being made by Israel's supposed friends there to prevent the
Palestinian scholar Hanan Ashrawi - of all people - from
receiving the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize this week. A Jewish writer
in Sydney has bravely defended her - not least because the local
Israeli lobby appears to have deliberately misquoted an
interview she gave me two years ago, distorting her words to
imply that she is in favour of suicide bombings.
Ashrawi is not in favour of these wicked attacks. She has
fearlessly spoken out against them. But Sydney University has
already withdrawn the use of its Great Hall for the presentation
of the peace prize and the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Lucy Turnbull,
has dissociated the City of Sydney, sponsor of the prize, from
the presentation. And just to show you what lies behind this -
apart from the fact that Turnbull's husband Malcolm is trying to
get a nomination for a parliamentary seat - take a look through
the following exchange between Kathryn Greiner, former
chairwoman of the Sydney peace foundation, and Professor
Stuart Rees, the foundation's director:
KG: "I have to speak logically. It is either Hanan Ashrawi or the
Peace Foundation. That's our choice, Stuart. My distinct
impression is that if you persist in having her here, they'll (sic)
destroy you. Rob Thomas of City Group is in trouble for
supporting us. And you know Danny Gilbert [an Australian
lawyer] has already been warned off."
SR: "You must be joking. We've been over this a hundred times.
We consulted widely. We agreed the jury's decision, made over a
year ago, was not only unanimous but that we would support it,
together."
KG: "But you're not listening to the logic. The Commonwealth
Bank ... is highly critical. We could not approach them for
financial help for the Schools Peace Prize. We'll get no support
from them. The business world will close ranks. They are saying
we are one-sided, that we've only supported Palestine."
There is more of the same, but Professor Rees is standing firm -
for now. So is Australian journalist Antony Loewenstein in Zmag
magazine. Ashrawi, he says, "has endured campaigns of hate
based on slander and lies for most of her life, from those who
are intent on silencing the Palestinian narrative ..." But how
much longer must this go on? Ashrawi, I notice, is now being
called an "aging (sic) bespoke terror apologist" by Mark Steyn in,
of all places, The Irish Times.
And it's getting worse. Said's work is now being denounced in
testimony to the US Congress by Dr Stanley Kurz, who claims
that the presence of "post-colonial theory" in academic circles
has produced professors who refuse to support or instruct
students interested in joining the State Department or
American intelligence agencies. So now Congress is proposing to
set up an "oversight board" - with appointed members from
Homeland Security, the Department of Defence and the US
National Security Agency - that will link university department
funding on Middle East studies to "students training for careers
in national security, defence and intelligence agencies ..."
As Professor Michael Bednar of the History Department at the
University of Texas at Austen says, "the possibility that someone
in Homeland Security will instruct college professors ... on the
proper, patriotic, `American-friendly' textbooks that may be
used in class scares and outrages me."
So it's to be goodbye to the life-work of Edward Said? And
goodbye to peace prizes for Hanan Ashrawi? Goodbye to
Palestinians, in fact? Then the radar really will be jammed.
---
Allies in WWII, foes in the Six Day War, veterans
recall the Palestine Regiment.
By Robert Fisk Middle East Correspondent.
11 November 2003
The Independent - London
NO ONE remembers the Palestine Regiment. Even this morning,
on the actual day of remembrance, few will recall that Arab and
Jew once fought together under the British flag against Nazi
Germany and Fascist Italy. Even fewer will know the
extraordinary story of an Arab and a Jew who fought side by side
against Hitler, and then twice fought each other as enemy
combatants - in 1948 and 1967 - and of how, in their declining
years, they became friends. But in a Middle East in which
"hawks" and "doves" and "terrorists" and "security forces" battle
to the death, their story provides an extraordinary - and
shaming - indictment of both Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat.
Hazim Khalidi was at the London School of Economics when the
Second World War broke out. He volunteered to join the British
Army, but was attached to the Indian army's "Palestine
Battalion". "They weren't going to have an Arab as a British
officer - things were somewhat racist then," Khalidi's son Sa'ad
says today. "But he was attached to the East Kent Regiment, the
`Buffs', and posted to Syria, where he worked with the British
brigadier-general Sir Edward Spears, and General Charles de
Gaulle."
Khalidi also became a good friend of a young British intelligence
officer in Beirut, Quintin Hogg - later Lord Hailsham of St
Marylebone - before the battalion was turned into the Palestine
Regiment with 14 companies. Among its soldiers was a young
Jewish Palestinian, Uzi Narkiss. Both men were posted to
support the Poles and the Eighth Army in Libya, and in their
battle with the Afrika Korps in 1942.
Arab and Jewish dead lie today in the El Alamein war cemetery.
But within months the Haganah, which was to form part of a
future Israeli army, infiltrated the regiment and persuaded its
Jewish servicemen - angry that they had not seen more action
against the Germans - to replace the Union Jack over their camp
with the Star of David. The British called it the "Flag Mutiny" and
disbanded the Palestine Regiment. Most of the Arabs drifted
back to Palestine. The Jewish part of the regiment became the
Jewish Brigade of the British Army and fought in Italy.
"My father was one of the few Palestinians who stayed on," Sa'ad
says. "He was flown to the UK, retrained at the staff college at
Camberley and finished the war as an officer in the Welsh
Guards under Lord Mountbatten."
Within three years, however, Khalidi was fighting to prevent
Jerusalem falling to the soldiers of the new Israeli state, one of
whom was Uzi Narkiss. He prevented Narkiss's unit from
reaching the Old City. But when the Six Day War broke out 19
years later, the two men were fighting each other again. This
time Narkiss was commanding two Israeli brigades against
Khalidi's six Jordanian army platoons who had been abandoned
by King Hussain. Almost all of Khalidi's men fought to the death
on Ammunition Hill, earning the admiration of Narkiss and his
Israeli soldiers. Khalidi's platoons were armed only with old
British Lee Enfield rifles and the 25-pounder guns they had used
at El Alamein. Khalidi, who was also deputy mayor of Jerusalem,
was one of the two Palestinian Arabs who formally surrendered
Jerusalem to Narkiss.
`'When Narkiss found out what had happened in the battle, he
and [Moshe] Dayan insisted on erecting a memorial with full
military honours on Ammunition Hill to the brave Jordanian
platoons who died there - despite [Prime Minister] Golda Meir's
protests," Sa'ad Khalidi says.
His father was to die in 1979 after becoming the first Palestinian
leader in the West Bank; the late Feisel Husseini would take over
his job. Narkiss died only three years ago. Yet in his last years
Khalidi was among the first Palestinians to hold face-to-face
talks with the Israelis, and his friendship with Narkiss lasted
until his death.
Another Israeli friend was Adin Talbar, who fought alongside
Khalidi and Narkiss in 1942 and who was in the Israeli Foreign
Ministry during Meir's premiership. He kept contact with Sa'ad
after his father's death.
"My father had to keep much of this secret," Sa'ad says. "He was
worried about being accused of being a `quisling' to the Israelis,
a collaborator. But he tried to create a peace process between
Palestinian and Israeli. The very latest attempt to create a plan
in opposition to the American `road-map' echoes some of his
realism. Before his death he made a BBC programme with the
Israeli writer Amos Oz - and Oz is now seeking to champion the
new alternative peace `plan'."
Of course, the names of both Khalidi and Narkiss are no longer
mentioned in the cruel conflict that consumes Israel and
Palestine. Neither is the Palestine Regiment, whose 61st
anniversary fell this year. Nor were the dead of the Palestine
Regiment - Arab and Jew - commemorated by the Queen at the
Cenotaph on Sunday.
----
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KIMURA Aiji(by Japanese traditional order. KIMURA is my family name)
E-mail:altmedka@jca.apc.org
URL of english page:http://www.jca.apc.org/~altmedka/engl-index.html
altmedka:Alternative Medium by KIMURA Aiji
Big big name, ah, ah, ah........
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題名には必ず「阿修羅さんへ」と記述してください。