Our addiction to the black gold has made us morally complicit in horrific discrimination. Farzaneh Milani writes in the New York Times: The Arab Spring is inching its way into Saudi Arabia — in the cars of fully veiled drivers. On the surface, when a group of Saudi women used Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to…
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Global dissidents may not want US openly backing them
Promoting web freedom is a noble idea, especially since so many autocratic regimes and Western multinationals are working together to stop citizens accessing the glories of information on the internet. But this idea is full of potential problems (via the New York Times), not least because Washington has a shocking record of supporting dictatorships at…
May Saudi stand-up comedy bring down the nation’s brutes
Amazing New York Times feature on the US backed dictatorship of Saudi Arabia and the brave souls challenging one of the most bigoted and oppressive regimes on earth: You know you are attending a Saudi Arabian comedy night when the sprawling performance tent is pitched 50 miles out into the desert to avoid the morals…
The Net Delusion is alive and well
My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: THE NET DELUSION Evgeny Morozov Allen Lane, 408pp, $29.95 As people in the Middle East have been protesting in the streets against Western-backed dictators and using social media to connect and circumvent state repression, it would be easy to dismiss The Net Delusion as almost…
Saudi Arabia desperate to keep West addicted to its deadly oil
There’s nothing like continuing to fund, arm and support one of the most brutal regimes on earth so we can drive and fly and fight wars.
America’s role in the Arab world should be finished
Robert Fisk is right: This month, in the Middle East, has seen the unmaking of the President of the United States. More than that, it has witnessed the lowest prestige of America in the region since Roosevelt met King Abdul Aziz on the USS Quincy in the Great Bitter Lake in 1945. While Barack Obama…
Britain happy to train Saudi thugs for crowd control
The real face of London’s foreign policy posture: Britain is training Saudi Arabia‘s national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that…
Washington strongly backs brutal Saudi regime
Because selling deadly weapons is the best way to show America’s real commitment to democracy in the Arab world: On the same day President Obama pressed again for peace in the Middle East, the Associated Press reminded us that the United States cannot help itself from flooding the region with the instruments of war, reporting…
Fisk on what Obama should say about the Middle East (but won’t)
Spot on: OK, so here’s what President Barack Obama should say today about the Middle East. We will leave Afghanistan tomorrow. We will leave Iraq tomorrow. We will stop giving unconditional, craven support to Israel. Americans will force the Israelis – and the European Union – to end their siege of Gaza. We will withhold…