Author Archives: richarwb

Unknown's avatar

About richarwb

I retired after 40 years in the international oil industry to write and to learn to play jazz on my bass flute. I published my first book - THE GULF "Reaping the whirlwind" in July 2012 and I am now working on a sequel GULF II " The Beginning of Sorrows". Heavy lifting - but someone needs to do it. I have a wife, two beautiful daughters and two wonderful grandkids, and I divide my time between Spain and Australia. Enough about me. My blog is not an ego trip.

RULE BRITANNIA

Posted on by
Reply

Britannia Rules the Waves:

I have just returned from an extended holiday in Tasmania. Not a place I really wanted to visit – but I am glad I went because it is a well preserved microcosm of British Empire building.

Raised as I was to despise the jingoism, racial predjudice and blind patriotism of the colonialists, the more I travel the World, the more I have come to admire the energy, the vision the bravery of those Empire builders. Just 22 million people from a small mist shrouded island whose maritime skills and initiatives dominated the World, and left in many cases an admirable legacy.

Port Arthur, Tasmania was founded as a penal colony in 1833 and was closed in 1877. In that short 44 years using convict labour it was a timber cutting facility, a coal mine, a flour mill, a foundry and a pententiary for some 2,000 convicts. But even in those far off days while the regime was brutal it was not as primitive as you might imagine.

The penitentiary was a solid 3 story structure of sandstone with shared cells. There was a separate psychological prison for hardened criminals beyond redemption in solitary confinement, and a separate Boys’ prison on an island to keep young offenders away from adult criminals. And later there was a rest home for elderly prisoners that could not be rehabilitated and returned to society that was possibly the model for Britain’s welfare state. How enlightened is all that?

The rehabiltation program was a well established 4 step procedure. A period of hard labour, a period as a trustee, a period as a parollee – and finally release into society with sometimes a gift of free land. So how enlightened was that.

There was a model village with a Governer’s mansion, a house for the Surgeon General, and a lovely sandstone Anglican church – and housing for the military and civilian personnel who ran the settlement. There were frequent dinner parties and social functions (horse racing and whale boat racing) to create a home from home and keep people from “going bush” – an important discipline in the British Empire.

Port Arthur is set in a lovely sheltered bay on what is essentially a heavily wooded island surrounded by rough seas only connected to the Tasmanian mainland by a very narrow strip of land (Eagles Neck). It was easy to defend and almost impossible to escape from because in those days most people could not swim and to enter the bush meant disoreintation, snakes and spiders and eventual death.

I am gobsmacked by how these enterprising people found these wonderful and lovely sites for their developments. The Dutch came first (hence the name Van Diemans land), and French botanists and zoologists later, and both moved on – but it was the British who settled and developed it. Just one small development in a World with a plethra of developments.

Think India, the jewel in The Crown, with the British heritage of a common language, a judical and educational system, and the largest parliamentary democracy in the World . Think Malaysia and Singapore and even Burma, now slowly returning to democracy. And think the USA, also founded by the British (look at the names of the founding fathers and the first Presidents).

So how is it that the American imperialists, and the British before them, have not been able to establish a stable legacy in the Middle East?

If you want insights into The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from the perspective of the weird and wonderful oilfield trash, expatriate characters who washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I TOLD YOU SO!

Posted on by
Reply

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia died recently. But before he died a former US Ambassador to Riyadh took the opportunity to thank him for not saying “I told you so”.

While successive US governments pushed for (and violently forced) democracy and free market capitalism in THE GULF and the Middle East, (and now face the chaos of the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolutions) – the Saudis valued social stability and slow evolutionary change above everything else and have come through unscathed and stronger than ever.

Egypt is now a spent force only kept alive by billions of Saudi dollars; and Iraq and Syria are fragmented by bloody sectarian and tribal battles to the death. This leaves Saudi, with the support of the UAE, the dominant regional player representing Sunni Islam in opposition to Iran/Hezbollah as the aggressive proponent of Shia Islam. But Saudi Arabia and the UAE have more oil – and more money.

As I have always said the Middle East is all about oil – and the fabulous wealth it brings.

I hate to say “I told you so” – but I told you so in my plays and in my book of short stories based on 40 years experience in the oil patch in The Arabian and Persian Gulf.

My first play EXPATRIA written 20 years ago loosely based on my experiences in the Iranian oilfields had a background in the CIA’s deposing of the legitimate democratic government of Mossedeq and replacing him with the despicable and corrupt Shah and his cronies. And the story TRIBAL WEAVING in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” had a similar theme.

My second play THE GULF written 16 years ago and loosely based on my experiences in the Emirates of Qatar, Dubai and Sharjah concerned the rise of fundemantal Islam in response to America’s naïve? Cynical? Brute force and ignorant? exploitation of cheap oil from The Gulf. It ended with the beheading of an American. And this was long before the grisly beheading of Daniel Pearle and others.

I TOLD YOU SO!

Unfortunately, my plays never got produced – although THE GULF came close with a rehearsed reading at the Soho Theatre in London. But I think that they are important enough, and still contemporary enough to warrnt publication and I am trying to put together a Kindle edition.

In the meantime, if you want insights into The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from the perspective of the weird and wonderful oilfield trash, expatriate characters who washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

Reaping the Whirlwind – a la Charlie

Posted on by
Reply

     I cannot think of a better example of reaping the whirlwind than the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo. How any intelligent human being can think they can hurl juvenile insults that demean the sincerely held beliefs of any group – and not pay the consequences – is a tribute to the state of denial of adultlescent Western so-called civilization.

     If you want to understand the origins of Islamic fundamentalism read John Keay’s book SOWING THE WIND about the blundering foreign policies of France, Britain, and later the USA in the 20th Century: then google “Reaping the Whirlwind” a CNA Corporation research document about American foreign policy blunders in the Arabian/Persian Gulf in the 21st century and its likely consequences.

    All of the erudite, outraged and hypocritical articles passionately rushing to the defence of free speech ignore the elephant in the room – Israel (Balfour has a lot to answer for). The single largest cause of Islamic fundamentalism is the State of Israel and its brutal treatment of the Palestinians. And if you want to test the boundaries of free speech in The West try writing an article – or better yet publishing a cartoon – that insults or demeans Israel or the Jews.

    Last year here in Australia a columnist on The Sydney Morning Herald did just that – and was fired under pressure from the Jewish lobby. And in the ultimate irony, Charlie Hebdo fired one of their cartoonists for an article critical of Israel – and he received death threats from Zionists. Clearly free speech is a one way street at Charlie Hebdo (It might be interesting to try and trace the origins of their funding).

    As George Orwell once said . . . “There is no need for censorship. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy . . . a body of ideas that it is assumed all right thinking people will adopt.” And in The West that orthodoxy is anti-Islam and pro-Jewish.

    Unlike most of the so-called experts I have lived and worked most of my adult life in the Middle East, and worked for Jews. Western politicans simply do not understand the semitic races – Arab or Jew. As a down-to-earth blue collar friend remarked about Arabs, “They write backwards, they read backwards . . . and they think backwards.”

    In no way do I want to demean Arabs or Jews. I simply want to point out that East is East, and West is West. Their thought processes are different to ours, their belief systems are different to ours, and you will never succeed with them until you learn to deal with this. I was very successful in Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia by allowing them to be who they are, and not trying to ram Western ideals down their throats.

    If you want insights into The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from the perspective of the stories of the weird and wonderful expatriate characters who washed up there from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

It’s all abbout OIL!

Posted on by
Reply

While writing my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I had many “meaningful discussions” with my editor Ed Plaisance (we are much too good friends to argue) because I insisted that politics in The Arabian/Persian Gulf – and the Mid-East generally – is all about Oil.

I insisted that the tag-line for the book reads:

“It’s all about oil. If there was no oil the only expatriates in The Gulf would be a few archaelogists and biblical scholars . . . OIL is the new Great Game, a game made serious by millions of petrodollars – and blood.”

Given the complexity of the politics, tribal loyalties and religious biogotry of that region I must confess even I began to think that my analysis was simplistic. But I have been saved by reading that Bradley Manning (he of the massive Wikileaks fiasco) came to exactly the same conclusion. He says that mid-East politics is all about oil – and he was better placed and has a lot more information than me.

It is a fact that when American troops arrived in Baghdad to depose Saddam they imediately, as a priority, threw a tight cordon around the Ministry of Petroleum while leaving the Ministry of Antiquities and their museums and priceless artifacts from the dawn of our civilization completely unprotected. The antiquities were of course heavily looted.

Whatever happened to those out-of-date 2D seismic tapes from the MinPet that loosely defined Iraq’s proven and potential oil reserves?

It is now known that Iraq has enormous potential reserves – maybe rivaling Saudi Arabia – if they can overcome the tribal and religious divides. Unfortunately for the central government most of the oil potential lies in the Shia South and the Kurdish North.

And ironically, for all the trillions of dollars and young soldiers’ lives that America threw into replacing Saddam with a neo-democratic government they have little involvment in the development of the Iraq oil industry. Contracts have been awarded to a wide ranging number of oil companies from Russia, China, Korea, Malaysia etc.

International Oil is the new Great Game. A game made serious by trillions of petrodollars = and the unending flow of blood. Think ISIS.

If you want insights into The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from the weird and wonderfull perspective of the expatriates who wash up there, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

How ya gonna keep’em down on the Farm (after they’ve seen Paree)?

Posted on by
Reply

The song with the above title was written in 1919 shortly after the end of WWI. Intended to be a cheerful little upbeat number, in fact it subconsciously tapped into deep underlying concerns in America – as so many popular songs do.

Even before the cataclysmic 1914-18 conflict young people were leaving the farms of the mid-West for the bright lights and perceived glamour of city life in LA, Chicago and New York. After the war the returning soldiers had enormous problems settling into plain and simple rural America after the sophistication of Europe – and, let’s face it, the excitement, cameraderie and terror of trench warfare where under the threat of violent death they experienced life more fully in one day than most people live in a lifetime. And so they became the “Lost Generation”.

Nowhere was this more manifest than in the incredible fevered artistic scene in Paris after WWI, where artists like Picasso, Braque and Miro, and musicians like Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Manuel de Falla were joined by American expatriate writers like Gertrude Stein, John dos Passos, Henry Miller and Ezra Pound.

The most outstanding example of this lost generation was of course my hero, Ernest Hemingway. Let’s face it, although his father was a suburban doctor, Hemingway was a naïve Kansas backwoodsman until at 19 he volunteered as an ambulance driver, was badly wounded on the Italian front, and found it impossible to settle back into the USA. He spent his struggling indigent and most fruitful artistic formative years in Paris – and that city was his only true love.

Perhaps it was because of his simple and innocent mid-American background that Hemingway was able to see with fresh and childlike eyes the breadth, the depth and the beauty of European culture?

In these more scientific times we diagnose soldiers returning from Afghanistan and the Gulf Wars as suffering from PTSD and feed them antidepressants to block out their experiences, instead of letting them work through the culture shock of being exposed to a violent and elemental tribal life far removed from the synthetic Big Mac/CocaCola lifestyle they have been force fed all their young and innocent lives. And who knows how many Hemingways we have lost in the process – although ironically it was depression that forced Hemingway to take his ownlife?

In the story “Ya Hear what Ah’m Saying” in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I deal with the struggles of a traumatized soldier returning from the Viet Nam War – the second of America’s post WWII disastrous attempts to impose their one-size-fits-all free market so-called democracy on the world (think Korea and watch MASH). Like many Viet Nam vets he found it impossible to settle back into the USA after exposure to the brutality of American foreign policy and the subtle charms of Asia. Read Graham Greene’s THE QUIET AMERICAN for insights into the Viet Nam conflict.

If you want insights into the disease that afflicts The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from an expatriate perspective, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

Treating the Symptoms . . .

Posted on by
Reply

Anybody who has been reading my blogs will know my favourite saying by now. After spending 25 years in The British Library analysing World History Karl Marx’s succinct analysis was:

“History repeats itself – first time tragedy, second time farce.”

The bloody French, of course, express it more elegantly:
“Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”
(The more things change, the more they stay the same)

And here down under in Australia among the Bogans and the Blodgers the Think Tanks are postulating (predicting) that the War on Terror will last the whole of the 21st century, and maybe beyond.
What they are talking about of course is not a war on terror but the Clash of Cultures between Islam and America’s neo-Con free market capitalism. And that war will continue as long as the USA persists in its unconditional support for Israel; its attempt to impose their barbaric “survival of the fittest” society on the World to crack open markets for their Coca Cola Big Mac culture; the pillage of the natural resources of the Third World (oil, hardwood, white fish etc.) – and in the process assassinating elected leaders, deposing legitimate governments, and bombing the sh*t out of anybody who dares to oppose them.
Saddam Hussein, by Middle Eastern standards an enlightened and secular despot, was deposed and replaced with an atavistic and vengeful Shia government that has split the country wide open on religious and tribal fault lines. Al-Qa’eda was degraded and rendered manageable (but not defeated) – but in its place like a Phoenix (or more exactly like the Lernaean HYDRA, the multi headed serpent of Greek mythology that protected the gates of Hades) has grown the much more ferocious and well organized ISIS. And when ISIS is finally downgraded (but not defeated) by a ferocious assault that will kill thousands and maim and shatter the lives of millions (reminiscent of Israel’s ferocious assaults on The Gaza Strip) that will only deepen the hatred of all things American, what will rise in its place will be an even more barbaric and fervent fundamental version of Islam.
My book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” that was first published 3 years ago grew out of a play that I wrote 16 years ago when I was living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In spite of a successful rehearsed reading at the Soho Theatre in London, theatre managers would not produce it because they found the climax (the honour killing of a young Muslim woman and the beheading of an American) far too violent. Yet a few years later we had the grisly beheading of Daniel Pearle, and honour killings and female suicide bombers are commonplace, and the barbaric actions of ISIS, including crucifixions, now make my play look tame.
If you want an insight into the disease that afflicts The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from an expatriate perspective, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.

The Beginning of Sorrows

Posted on by
Reply

The sequel to my collection of short stories THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” will be a novel THE GULF “The Beginning of Sorrows”. It is based on a Biblical quotation that seems very relevant to today: “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars but see that you are not troubled for all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Mathew the Apostle It seems that the 21st Century that dawned with such hope cannot move on and shake off the problems and the illnesses of the 20th century. A new Cold War with Russia is threatening, a new “Yellow Peril” , with China replacing Japan, has emerged – and the “Out of Africa” Ebola epidemic has replaced the scourge of HIV/AIDS. And, we are still locked into that atavistic tribal battle for land and resources, the Arab/Israeli conflict in The Middle East. Somehow this has morphed into a Clash of Cultures between Christianity and Islam. And still we treat the symptoms and not the disease. The disease is ignorance that leads to hubris. Hubris is the self confidence of the ignorant. Some Western politicians understand the problems – but they do not understand the people. The present outcry “Ban the Burqua” is typical. It is a typical lazy journalist/PR sound bite for what is a much more complex issue. Burqua is the term used in Afghanistan, it is Chador in Iran, Hijab in Arabia and Yashmak in other parts of The Midddle East – and God knows what it is called in Malaysia and Indonesia which is the largest Muslim nation on earth, and not in the least Arab. Although Iraq has made us aware of the schism and deep mistrust (hatred?) between Sunni and Shia Muslims we have no idea of the complexities of the various sects within that schism (Alawites, Sufis et.) even more complex than the Catholic (Jesuit, Opus Dei etc.) and Protestant (Coptic, Lutheran, Orthodox etc.) in the Christian faith. And in the case of the Middle East we have to deal with tribal loyalties that overlay religious divides – and people who speak fervently of events of 7,000 years ago as if they happened yesterday, and they were present. The consequences of misreading the MidEast, of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind of Western governments’ present hubris are unthinkable. Israel and Iran lobbing nuclear weapons at each other? Remember that in biblical terms this is the site of Armageddon – the ultimate battle between Good and Evil. But who is good and who is evil? But don’t wait for my novel THE GULF “The Beginning of Sorrows”. You can gain insights into the MidEast and its complexity from an expatriate perspective if you preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at: http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards and download it if you have a Kindle. Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from: http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk The ISBN number is 978-1908147097 They offer free delivery worldwide.

Reaping the Whirlwind

Posted on by
Reply

My novel THE GULF is a linked series of stories about the expatriate characters in The Arabian/Persian Gulf washed up there because of the blunderings of ignorant and arrogant politicians, and venal and corrupt businessmen.
 I subtitled it “Reaping the Whirlwind” because the chaos in The Gulf can be traced back to the politicians and businessmen of The British and French Empires who sowed the wind in the early 20th Century.
The Sykes/Picot Agreement that broke up Assyria and created Syria and Iraq, and later split off Lebanon and Kuwait. The Balfour Declaration that gave Zionists the green light to occupy Palestine. The deposing of the democratically elected Mosedeq government in Iran and the installation of the corrupt Shah and his venal cronies that led to The Ayatollahs’ rule. And America’s greed for cheap oil that led to the fabulous oil wealth of Saudi Arabia that funded fundamental Islam and led to the events of 9/11.
The USA inherited the mantle of the British Empire in the Middle East, and they have sown the wind again with two Gulf Wars, and unconditional support for Israel. They reaped the whirlwind with 9/11 and continue to do so with the Iran backed Hezbollah, Al-Qa’eda and the now even more terrifying ISIS (The Islamic State).
In the early days Israel, backed and supplied by the USA, had little problem dealing with threats from Egypt and Syria, and invaded and destabilized South Lebanon with impunity. But if I remember correctly in their last incursion into Lebanon they were fought to a standstill by The Hezbollah. And now it seems that in the not too distant future they will face a battle-hardened, well-organized, well-funded and well-armed army of many thousands on their Eastern flank.
How much longer can America afford financially and strategically to support Israel and be so distracted from facing the growth of China, and the re-emergence of Russia as world powers?
In the final chapter in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” the protagonist is Layla, a Christian Palestinian who runs a Church of England orphanage in Ramallah. She says that this conflict is not really a religious or idealogical battle between Judaism and Islam: it is an ancient and atavistic blood feud over territory and resources between Arab tribes. The West understands the issues, but do not understand the people.
The West should not be involved.
You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”</strong at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope it enriches your life.

Hey, Hey LBJ . . . how many kids did you kill today?

Posted on by
Reply

Inevitably, the brave Australian journalist Mike Carlton has lost his job because, sickened by the slaughter of innocent children in Gaza by the IDF, he wrote the strong article criticising Israel and the Likudites of Netenyahu. He was subjected to a torrent of abuse, and death threats from the Jewish lobby and their apologists. He responded with some robust language and was suspended by FAIRFAX Media. He chose to resign because of their lack of support for his right to Free Speech.

FAIRFAX have of course denied that he was suspended because of pressure from the Jewish lobby but because he was rude to their readers. Pull the other one it has bells on.
Close to 2,000 Palestinians have now been killed by the IDF’s latest furious attacks on Gaza. Seventy percent were civilians, and almost 300 of them were children. And their blood lies not only on the hands of the Israelis – but also on the hands of American politicians with their blind and unconditional support of Israel.
But this is not the first time, and sadly it will not be the last, when America has sponsored the killing of children (think Iraq, think Afghanistan, think Viet Nam). One of the stories in my book THE GULF is about Carter “Call me Buddy” Scruggins who was a sharpshooter during the Viet Nam War. He was under orders to “take out” (What a delightful euphemism for Kill) children who approached US patrols through the villages in case they had explosives strapped to them.
This why anti-Viet Nam War activists used to taunt President Lyndon Johnson with the chant “Hey, Hey, LBJ . . . How many Kids did you kill today.
How many more children have to die before American politicians in general, and Barak Obama in particular, says enough is enough? What is the tipping point? 2,000 children, 20,000 children, 2 million children? There is no valid excuse in the world for killing even one child. It is barbaric and inhuman – and America could, and should, stop it in its tracks regardless of the power of the Jewish lobby.
Obama is no Mandela – but if he wishes to go down in history as some sort of statesman he should stop the Israelis in their tracks by cutting all US Aid to Israeli until they conform with international law. It is US Aid of more than US$ 20 Million per day that is enabling and prolonging the ongoing battles in Gaza. Cut off the aid and it will stop. There is a precedent.
For 25 years the IRA was allowed to raise funds in the USA to enable their terrorist tactics in Northern Ireland because of the power of the Irish Lobby. But when the Kennedy Era faded the USA found the political will to condemn the IRA and stop the fund raising. The IRA decommissioned their weapons within a year and there is now peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland
The final chapter in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” deals not with the dead Palestinian children (unfortunately they are beyond our help) but with the orphans who receive equally heartless treatment in this atavistic battle in The Holy Lands. The protagonist Layla, a Christian Palestinian who runs a Church of England orphanage in Ramallah, puts it into context. She says that this conflict (just like Northern Ireland) is not really a religious or idealogical battle between Judaism and Islam: it is an ancient and atavistic blood feud over territory and resources between Arab tribes – and the West do not understand and should not be involved.
You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope it touches your heart and leads to action. As Noam Chomsky said “knowledge of the world is of no use unless it leads to action.”

For the Love of Money is the root of all Evil . . .

Posted on by
Reply

And is there anything more evil than the killing of innocent children such as is happening every day in Gaza.

The shooting down of MH 17 that killed so many young children was gruesome enough – but at least there is the possibility that this was a mistake and the terrorist thought he was shooting down a Ukrainian military plane. No such mitigating circumstance exists in Gaza where the Israeli forces are indiscriminately killing women and children with a ferocity that is unbelievable given that they claim to be a civilized society.
This weekend there was an article in Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald that compared the policies of Benjamin Netenyahu and his LIKUD party to the Nazis, and their arrogance to that of Fascists. The savagery of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) retaliation to the HAMAS rockets smacks of the Nazis policy of shooting 100 innocent hostages for every German soldier killed. The recent wave of rockets killed 2 or 3 Israelis. The IDF response has been to kill almost 1,000 Palestinians (mostly civilians) including about 200 children.
This is barbaric and obscene. But what is even more obscene it the refusal of the USA to sanction Israel. Russia’s complicity in the shooting down of MH 17 has brought about a huge wave of sanctions orchestrated by the USA. Yet Israel has bulldozed 400 Palestinian villages, sent 1 million Palestinians into exile to live in the misery and squalor of refugee camps, laid siege to Gaza, continued to build illegal settlements on the West Bank – and continues to slaughter Palestinians: all with with the complicity of the USA, and with weaponry and ammunition supplied by them using the US$20 million per day of aid the USA provides to Israel. Why?
Because all American politicians know that without the support and the finance of the Jewish lobby they will not get re-elected. Shame on you for your inhumanity and putting politics before people. May you rot in Hell.
Is it any wonder the Arab Street refers to America as The Evil Empire and fundamental Islam is on the march. Some years ago an Arab friend of mine said that Israel would never be satisfied until they owned the whole of the Middle East and its oil wealth. At the time I thought that was an extreme view. But the Israelis seem intent on annihilating Gaza and annexing The West Bank. What is next? Jordan? Iraq? Syria? Tomorrow the World?
The Biblical quotation about the love of money ends like this:
“ . . . which some coveted after have erred from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.”
And while it seems that the majority of Israelis support Netanyahu and LIKUD, there is a sizeable minority who are sickened by their inhumanity.
The final chapter in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” tries to set this in context with the story of Layla, a Christian Palestinian who quits her career as a cabin attendant and runs a Church of England orphanage in Ramallah which is eventually closed by the IDF scattering the orphans to the wind. This is just one story of many of that turbulent region where millions of lives have been shattered by the blunderings of the Foreign policies of the super powers.
Perhaps God in His wisdom has forgiven Sykes and Picot and James Balfour. Millions of Palestinians cannot, and their dead and maimed children cannot.

You can preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:
http://www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards
and download it if you have a Kindle.
Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.
I hope you enjoy it.