kickin’ up a ruckus

The Arab Spring began as a revolutionary movement with a open, and sometimes radical program for renewal, as last compared to the existing order. And it turning out to be something failrly similar to what it replaced. In Syria, the difference between the good guys and the heavies are the Blue Meanies on one side and a Pandora’s box of just add water and stir Salafist kooks, thugs, soldiers of fortune and diverse wackos far from the image of disgrunted ordinary citizens, struggling artists and intellectuals, Ernest Hemingway archetypes we have been led to believe were behind this sort of purity of arms insurrection.

The ultimate explanation may be found in the dynamics that seem intrinsic to reactionary movements in general, and to leave out the Tony Blair baloney on Charlie Rose, the rebellions seem to encourage the actors to cut themselves off from history and then cultivate rather morbid extra-human ambitions; divine cosmic justice with Allah not sparing the rod. A natural outcome being a brand of isolationism in social life and the aesthetics of post-modernism and their own affirmation of a rebranded fascist style rule in politics. Does it come back to the old moral axiom that history avenges itself on those who actively engage, are complicit in the suppression of it, and than attempts to impose a future, from within or without, any future, must come out in a destructive manner….

(see link at end)…Since then, the verdict of the Iraq war has been confirmed in Afghanistan, where another vastly expensive US expeditionary force has failed to crush an insurgency. In the last few weeks alone, Taliban fighters have succeeded in storming Camp Bastion in Helmand province and destroying $200m worth of aircraft. So many American and allied soldiers have now been shot by Afghan soldiers and police that US advisers are under orders to wear full body armour when having tea with their local allies….

…The Arab Spring uprisings posed a new threat to the US, but also opened up new options. Support for Mubarak was decisively withdrawn at an early stage, to the dismay of Saudi Arabia and Israel. But the Muslim Brotherhood had long been considering how it could reach an accommodation with the US that would safeguard it against military coups, and enable it to chop back the power of the Egyptian security forces. This was very much the successful strategy of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development (AKP) party, explaining why it was prepared to join the US in invading Iraq in 2003 and why it has become the chief instrument of American policy towards Syria in the past year.

This alliance with Islamic but democratic and pro-capitalist parties in Egypt and Turkey is obviously in the interests of the US and the Atlantic powers. But their support for democratic change in North Africa and West Asia is determined by self-interest. It does not, for instance, extend to Bahrain where the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy has been busily locking up its Shia opponents and retreating from promises of meaningful reform. But new allies must at some point mean fresh policies. In sharp contrast to the Mubarak regime, a new government in Egypt is unlikely to support covertly Israeli military action such as the bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 and of Gaza in 2008.

A problem for the White House is that American voters have not taken on board the extent to which US influence has been reduced. For all the rhetoric about the Iraq war being a strategic disaster, the American political and military elite has also failed to appreciate the extent and consequences of failure. It is extraordinary to discover, according to recent revelations, that as late as 2010 Vice-President Joe Biden was under the impression that he could blithely decide who would be president of Iraq. Biden’s grip on Iraqi geography appears to be as shaky as his understanding of its politics. On one occasion in Baghdad, he lauded all the good things the US had done for Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, having apparently mistaken it for Basra in southern Iraq….

The killing of the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and the burning of the US Consulate in Benghazi could have been a worse political disaster for President Barack Obama than it turned out to be. It highlighted that the rebels who overthrew Muammar G

fi were not quite as they had been presented by the US government and media during the war past year….  In July last year, the rebels’ own commander, Abdel Fatah Younis, was abducted and murdered by men nominally under his command in revenge for repressive actions he had carried out before he defected from Gaddafi’s forces.

ADDENDUM:

(see link at end)…Bungalow number 2, the bridal suite… [book: Let's see, Tent no.2, the bridal suite] Shrak Abdullah and twenty-eight wives for twenty-seven days

Mr Shrak No.
Groucho (corrrecting himself)…twenty-seven wives for twenty-eight days…
Mr Shrak Yes.
Groucho I’d have charge you for an extra wife if you weren’t on your toes – and it takes quite a man to be on his toes with twenty-seven wives. I’d be on my heels. [That last phrase appears in the book as well but is crossed out on the script and replaced with: A guy's got to be charged up to have twenty-eight wives. That'll be a hundred and forty francs.]

(Mr Shrak pays and stalks off, followed by his long retinue of wives)

I don’t envy him. Remember, every one of those wives has a mother!

(Groucho then finds a spare wife left sobbing in the bridal tent. He flings himself on the cushions beside her and consoles her)

Fine husband. He checks out of here and forgets you. Don’t cry. I wouldn’t worry about him. Men are ten cents a dozen…I wish women were.
Girl He’ll come back for me.
Groucho Well, he’d better hurry. Remember, the management is not responsible for wives left over thirty days. (He adds passionately:) Don’t be a fool, come away with me.
Girl I’ll never leave here. I’m a part of Africa, and Africa is a part of me.
Groucho Well, at least I’m seeing the best part of Africa….

…Groucho What do you do with your camels? How do you rent them? By the hour?
Chico I just fill them up with water and they go for eight days.
Groucho What do you feed them?
Chico Peanuts – it’s the healthiest food in the world.
Groucho How do you know?
Chico I was a monkey for three years.
Groucho (glancing at him doubtfully) It’s been longer than that.
By the way, what are your rates?
Chico Twenty francs for a camel with two humps, and ten francs for a camel with one hump.
Groucho What do you charge for a camel with no humps?
Chico A camel with no humps is a horse. I gotta horse too, but the horse has a bump.
Groucho (eyeing the street below him wistfully) If I could get back down there I’d go that way.
Chico Don’t worry about the price, Boss. Whatever you got – I take.

(They arrive at the hotel and is greeted by Harpo, who takes possession of Groucho’s carpet-bag)

Groucho Be careful of that. Everything I own in the world is in that bag! (The bag flips open)
Chico Hey! That bag is empty.
Groucho That’ll give you an idea what I own.
Chico (returning to business) That’ll be one hundred francs, Boss.
Groucho But the meter says fifty francs.
Chico Yeh, but I told you. It’s double for a camel with two humps….Read More:http://www.marx-brothers.org/marxology/desert.htm