Category Archives: The Middle East

Why am I a Sceptic/Cynic?

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I had a happy childhood. I am by nature optimistic – and yet I am sceptical of everything I see and hear – because:

My first management role was as Group Leader of SHELL’s jet fuel lab near Heathrow. My first project was the field testing of a water detector that had been developed by SHELL’s prestigious Amsterdam Research Laboratorium – and I, and my 3 research assistants, could not make it work.

Under intense pressure from my boss – and feeling like a failure who had fallen at the first fence – and in the throes of a panic attack at 3 am, I thought the unthinkable. What if Amsterdam were wrong? It took me and my assistants a morning in the lab to show that they were wrong.

I rushed to my boss shouting “Amsterdam are wrong.”. He was aghast. “You can’t say that,” was his reponse. And I had to invent a bullshit technology invoking Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle to explain the difference between lab results and field experience. The SHELL Water Detector is still in safe use at most of the world’s airports – thanks to my 3 am panic attack.

Very much later, I was the Manager of SGS Redwood’s Production Laboratory in Aberdeen that devised the crude oil Production Allocation scheme for the EKOFISK field with the Norwegain Petroleum Directorate; and for Occidental’s PIPER/CLAYMORE oilfields. On that basis we were invited to participate in the development of a scheme for the vastly more complex Sullom Voe Terminal project along with SHELL, ESSO, BP and ICI.

Test samples were sent to all the labs for analysis – and the results were sent to a Cambridge PhD for collation and analysis. He issued a report that made no sense to anybody. Les Berqvist from ESSO then asked the 64K question, “What is the baseline you have used to compare the results?” His confident answer, “My results, of course.”

Instead of applying well known statistical methods to analyze all results, including his own, he had made the vain and arrogant assumption that his results were the most accurate – and he was hostile, embarrassed and defensive when he was found out. Contrary to popular belief, scientists are human. They are frequently vain, intellectually arrogant, insecure and desperate for recognition. And under intense pressure to conform to orthodox beliefs in order to attract funding.

Think what George Orwell said:

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas, which it is assumed right-thinking people will accept without question.”(GlobalWarming) ”Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an official ban.” (think the late Dr. David Kelly, and Iraqi WMD)

Just like the scientists, the neo-Cons and neo-Liberals are so certain of their righteousness that they feel justified in spinning their half truths – and their outright lies. Tony B-Liar is still maintaining it was right to get rid of Saddam Hussein, in spite of the hundreds of thousands killed and being killed, maimed and being maimed in Iraq and Syria, the millions of refugees being displaced into Jordan, Turkey, and on into Europe – and the rise of ISIS, a far more terrifying and effective terrorist group than Al Qa’eda. He needs to seek asylum – in a psychiatric unit.

If you want more insights into the chaos and confusion that preceded all this read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. It is written from the points of view of the archetypal expatriates who washed up in the the Arabian/Persian Gulf, prior to the events of 9/11. They were victims of powermad politicians’ wars, greedy finance house excesses – and in some cases just victims of avaricious Western wives, and out of control drug-crazed teenage children.

It is based on my 40 years in the international oil industry, most of it spent in The Gulf. You can preview it on AMAZON’s Kindle Websites for the USA, UK, Germany and Spain, and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book in your hands, order the paperback direct from my publisher:

www.feedaread.com

Stop the World – I want to get off

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Am I the only sane person on this planet?

At the present moment there is 11 times more financial instruments being traded worldwide than the total World GDP. A massive bubble waiting to burst. Here in Australia private debt is 250% of GDP, and yet, in order to buy a house young couples are being encouraged to extend themselves, and borrow 8 times their joint incomes.

Yet the cause of the most recent Global Financial Crisis was the Banks and investment houses selling mortgages that they knew people could not afford (i.e. they committed fraud) and then bet against those toxic financial instruments so that they made billions when they failed. And nobody went to jail.

And the IMF have admitted that they allowed Greece to draw down 2,000 times more than the agreed safe borrowing limit. And, of course, nobody can find the papers on that, or who was responsible for signing it off.

Stop the World I want to get off.

Now the neo-liberal urban elite are decrying BREXIT, in spite of the fact that there are already 8.5 million immigrants in the UK, with more to come, in a country about a third the size of New South Wales, with a permanent population of 60 million. And the much vaunted trade with Europe is running at a Euros 89 Billion deficit per year for the UK. The EU is dominated by an anti-British bureacracy in Brussels, run by a drunken old fool, that has actively encouraged, and funded the transfer of British manufacturing and technology across to Eastern Europe.

Stop the World I want to get off.

And now on a global basis it is predicted that Robotics, and the “Internet of Everything” will be a new Industrial (Digital) Revolution that will throw millions of people out of work. And still we hear that Globalization – a euphemism for Americanization – the only way for mankind to proper.

Are we all going to emulate a society whose only philosophy is “Get rich quick”? A violent society riven by racism, where almost every citizen owns a gun: with 20,000 gun murders a year (including massacres in schools, colleges and gay clubs), with 200,000 aggravated assaults and 200,000 (reported) rapes a year – where 2.5 million citizens are in jail with a further 1 Million on parole – and where the President and Commander in Chief of 40% of the world’s miltary with his/her finger on the trigger is either going to be an ego-maniac jingoist with a ridiculous combover, or a crazed geriatric chipmunk with an adulterous husband: a Wall Street puppet whose CV is littered with shady business dealings who has shown ignorance of, or cavalier disregard for, even the most basic disciplines of national security.

Stop the World I want to get off.

But I guess it was always so. Look at the chaos in the Middle East, whose past is littered with fools, carpetbaggers, despots, religious zealots and power crazed politicians – and outright thieves. If you want insights into how it got into such a mess read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”.

It is a linked series of character studies of archetypal expatriates who wash up in the the Arabian/Persian Gulf, victims of powermad politicians’ wars, greedy finance house excesses – and in some cases just victims of avaricious Western wives, and out of control drug-addled teenage children. Welcome to the modern world.

It is based on my 40 years in the international oil industry, most of it spent in The Gulf. You can preview it on:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book in your hands, order the paperback direct from my publisher:

www.feedaread.com

Is the (male) Working Class Hero dead?

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In the last three books I have read, the protaganists have been 23 year old, American, white, female college graduates out in the exciting and frightening wide world for the first time. Is this the new trope for the classic hero’s journey?

My book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” is also a classic hero’s journey – and my protaganist is indeed 23 years old and white; but male, and from the working class, and not college educated. Nevertheless he feels alienated and guilty because he has abandoned the hard life of his mates in the shipyard, and works as a journalist. He is a foreign correspondent out in the wide world for the first time. And it is probably this guilt that fuels his rage against Britain’s elitist foreign policies, and against his entitled University educated colleagues in the media.

For the working class male – and the cannon-fodder foot- soldier who fights not for Queen and Country, but for his comrades in arms – loyalty to your mates/comrades is central to your sense of masculinity. To rise above it, and break ranks is a betrayal.

But a sense of honour, comradeship, and betrayal is archaic now. We have moved so far away from the social revolution of the 1950s,(when the working class gained “free” access to higher education, and upward mobility), that feelings of guilt and alienation are riseable? And the anti-Viet Nam war riots of the 60s, and the Sexual Revolution, succeeded in putting women and under-25s on an equal footing with their Elders and Betters (who proved to be just older, and not better). And the feminist movement has succeeded in making it possible for 23 year old white females to be heros – and not heroines?

At least, for me, one benefit would be we no longer hear about John Lennon – the working class hero who never did a day’s work in his life.

The female protaganists do feel guilt, but it is because once the adrenaline rush of being out in a violent, unpredictable and squalid world has died, they come to realize that they are not connected. They are priveleged, affluent, healthy and hygenic, and wear nice expensive clothes – and always have a return ticket back to suburbia. This isolates them from the Third World residents they mingle with – for a while.

My protaganist Mick, coming from an underclass that has suffered the consequences of the blunderings of the ruling classes, and dying in the thousands in politicians’ wars, identifies all to easily with the Wretched of the Earth. So my stories are from the bottom up, while these new stories are top down.

Mick’s rage is a primal howl against the possibility of living a decent and honourable life in an increasingly squalid, corrupt and tawdry globalized world. As he says “The World is OK – it’s people who are pricks.”

I make no claim that my stories are better – but they are authentic, and felt, rather than observed. And it is my belief that any art form benefits from being an emotional journey – not intellectual. Perhaps in my next book the protaganist should be a 23 year old Liberalized Muslim woman? But then it would not be authentic. I am not a Muslim or a woman

THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” is a linked series of character studies of the archetypal expatriates who wash up in the the Arabian/Persian Gulf, victims of powermad politicians wars, and greedy finance houses excesses – and in some cases just victims of shopaholic wives, and out of control teenage children. Welcome to the modern world.

It is based on my 40 years in the international oil industry, most of it spent in The Gulf. You can preview it on:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book in your hands, order the paperback direct from my publisher:

www.feedaread.com

Tribal Weaving

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One of the criticisms levelled at BREXIT it that it will encourage the rise of nationalism in Europe. The irony of the European Union is that it has already presided over the rise of nationalism, and a descent into tribalism.

First we had the breakup of Yugoslavia, with only Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia as viable economic entities, and the remainder as dependent entities for the forseeable future. Then Czechoslovakia broke up with Slovakia heavily dependent.

Now it seems that the UK might break up – with Scotland and Northern Ireland wanting to stay in the EU – and leave the UK. The EU encourages disintegration, with its promise of huge regional grants to support peripheral economies that actively encourages ethnic differences.

I am, on my Mother’s side, Anglo Saxon from Middle England, with surnames like Brown, Jackson and Washington, and possible distant realtionships with American Presidents. But on my Father’s side I am a Celt with grandparents from Greenock on Clydeside, and Wrexham, North Wales. I even have a Manx great grandmother, so there is some Viking in there. (And this raises the issue of The Shetlands, which are as much Norwegian in their thinking – UP HELLY Aa festival with Geizer Jarl and a procession of Vikings. And remember, The Shetlands were a gift from the Norwegians to the English Crown so legally does not belong to Scotland).

Where I was born and raised in England our neighbours were predominantly Irish – the Brandons, the Braddocks, the Burkeys and the Hollingsworths – and Welsh, the Williams, the Roberts and Jones’s. And where my grandparents lived they were mostly Scottish – the Lawsons, the McTaggarts, the McCallisters. And the Anglo, Irish, Welsh and Scottish children all freely intermarried. The idea of racial purity is atavistic.

The British are a mongrel nation of Anglo-Celts with dashes of Viking, Norman and even Roman blood – and it was this broad gene pool that produced the hybrid energy and dynamism that changed and enriched the whole world. It is unthinkable that we will go back to the atavistic extremes of nationalism, tribalism and ferocious clan loyalties.

We have just recently emerged from 25 years of the blood letting and brutality of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. A battle between two Celtic tribes with the English as “piggy-in-the-middle”. Imagine if Sinn Fein get their wish, and Northern Ireland stays in the EU, and the EU supports the unification of Ireland. How will the Protestant Celts respond? I forsee a civil war with Scottish Protestants joining the fray. It will be The Balkans all over again, with the Americans and the UN joining in and turning a crisis into a disaster.

It is exactly this sort of outside interference and intervention that has caused the sectarian rivalry and tribalism and the apocalyptic and brutal conflicts in the Middle East.

In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” there is a story, TRIBAL WEAVING, that appears to support tribalism. In a way it does, because the yearning to return to the simpler nomadic life of a hunter/gather, (the Noble Savage), and escape the boredom of sedentary and tedious suburban living, is very strong, particularly in the hard-pressed Western male. But the story is more serious than that.

Iran had a democratically elected government under Mossadeq – but he was socialist, and so the Americans deposed him and placed the despicable Shah and his cronies in power. They tried to drive the nomadic tribes to settle in towns and villages so that they could seize their lands. And the people revolted and threw out The Shahinshah and replaced him with the Ayatollahs. Out of the frying pan and into . . .

If you want authentic insights into the chaos in the Middle East from 1960 that lead to the events of 9/11, 2001 then read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. Based on 40 years working in the international oil industry it is a collection of stories about expatriates washed up in the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Flotsam and jetsam trying to survive in a rapidly changing and frequently violent world. You can preview it at:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book in your hands, order the paperback direct from my publisher:

www.feedaread.com

Second time Farce

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The Chilcott report has confirmed what most of us suspected – that Bush and Blair were determined to go to war, and “sexed up” dubious intelligence to justify it. I hope that Dr. David Kelly’s widow gets millions in compensation – of course the relatives of the military personnel who died or were wounded, are not far behind.

Blair’s repeated assertion “I did not lie” is on a par (although much more serious) with his mate Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman”. Blair is either the biggest liar that ever existed – or his lying is pathological, and he is unable to distinguish lies from truth. And his assertion that the Middle East is better for his getting rid of Saddam is denial of the highest order. He needs to be sectioned and given electric shock treatment at a very high voltage. Or maybe he should just be “water-boarded”.

But Blair is not only a liar – he is also incompetent. Chilcott points out that the UK had no coherent plan for reorganising Iraq after the war was won. And the same goes for the Americans. If you want to put flesh on the bones of the Chilcott report then read Rory Stewart’s OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS (he was a British interim regional governor in Iraq after the war), and Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERALD CITY. He reports on the delusional triumphalism of State Department Yahoos inside the safety of the Green Zone, while they carefully ignore the chaos and danger outside the walls.

But why be surprised? The Middle East is littered with the delusions of Western politicians causing chaos, and the death and maiming of innocents. The Great Game; Britain’s disastrous forays into Afghanistan; Sykes/Picot; the Balfour Declaration; Suez; the Shah of Iran; the Iran/Iraq war when we backed Saddam – and the First Gulf War.

There was some moral basis for that war – after Saddam invaded Kuwait. But there is strong evidence that the US State Department gave Saddam the green light to invade – and evidence that they wildly exaggerated (sexed up) the strength of Saddam’s Imperial Guard giving them the excuse to massacre hundreds of Iraqi conscripts and civilians (including women and children) as they streamed out of Kuwait towards Baghdad along the “Mile of Death”.

Read the story ‘IF YOU DON’T, SOMEONE ELSE WILL’ in my book THE GULF  “Reaping the Whirlwind”. Very little of that story is fiction. I met the US Colonel who was responsible for re-supplying Desert Storm – and I was working for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia during that war responsible for jet fuel quality. My description of the helicopter Forward Operating Base is from personal experience. And my description of the sickening massacre along the “Mile of Death” comes from TV footage shown in Saudi Arabia – and the reports of one of the few journalists allowed in.

The tag line for my book reads “It’s all about oil…” but that really only applies to the 20th century. The Middle East is the cradle of our civilization, and the crossroads of our world – and has always been the scene of conflict. Mesopotamia, The Fertile Crescent, The Silk Road, the Ur of Chaldea, the birth of monotheastic religions, Jerusalem and the rise of Islam and the bloody Christian Crusades. And I am quite sure that those atavistic struggles have always been littered with the lies and incompetence of vainglorious and narcissitic politicans. History repeats itself – first time tragedy – second time farce.

If you want authentic insights into the chaos in the Middle East from 1960 to the events of 9/11, 2001 then read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. Based on 40 years working in the international oil industry it is a collection of stories about expatriates washed up in the Arabian/Persian Gulf. Flotsam and jetsam trying to survive in a rapidly changing and frequently violent world. You can preview it at:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle. Or if you prefer a real book order the paperback direct from my publisher:

www.feedaread.com

Rule Britannia?

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The British referendum that has sent shock waves through the EU, and the rest of the World, is being seen through the lens of being bad for Britain. But the realization is sinking in that it is at least as bad – if not worse – for the EU.

As the second largest economy in Europe, Britain contributed more than Euros 20 Billion annually to the EU budget, so who is going to pick up that tab? And their balance of trade was more than Euros 100 Billion in deficit (i.e. the EU made that in profit from British trade). And what about the 3 million Poles, and God knows how many other East Europeans, currently employed in the UK – and drawing family benefits to send home?

And if the more than 500,000 expatriate Brits living in Spain and France decide to leave and dump their houses on an already depressed real estate sector, what effect will that have? And what if Brits decide to forgoe holidays in France and Spain in favour of the USA and Dubai?

And what if fleet of foot Britain – not hidebound by 26 other partners and their vested self interests – does rapidly conclude trade deals with the USA (and China and Russia???) and their former colonies? And what if the British banking sector, again not hidebound by EU bureaucracy, gets even bigger inflows of money?

President Obama, and Secretary John Kerry, have already backflipped and said that of course there is a special relationship with Britain and there will be a trade deal. Why? Because the USA needs Britain firmly in NATO. They are the second largest military force, and almost always back the USA (unlike the bloody French).

I am pro-Europe. I lived in France for a year, and Spain for 23 very happy years. But like the majority of Brits I am sick and tired of unelected Brussels commissioners meddling, and trying to micro-manage Europe – and alarmed that they have been plotting to create a superstate where all 27 members will be subjugated to their rule. Britain is the home of Magna Carta – and Common Law that always has to pass the test of reasonableness – and not the dictates of Napoleonic Civil Code.

The French invented the EU, and congratulations for that vision; but with arrogant intellectual vanity they have become Messianic. European Union is not a religion, Brussels is not the Vatican, and Jean-Claude Juncker is not a Pope issuing infallible dogma. Britain has done the World a favour by injecting a dose of pragmatism into what was becoming a dangerous situation. That which does not bend – breaks.

Analyse any revolution (including the French), and bloody and barbaric as they always are, you will see the cause is a ruling class detached from the wishes of the common people. And the common people, at least in Britain (and I suspect many other European countries) are sick and tired of being treated as cannon fodder having their lives destroyed by the dogmas of a high-minded elite who believe they have a Divine Right to Rule. And they are also tired of thieving, lying and corrupt politicians – and a compliant media – who allow this to happen.

Europe is in uproar, and the Middle East is even worse. And the cause was a ruling elite who thought they knew better. They blundered in and intervened – and lied and cheated because in their eyes the end justifies the means. Now look at the chaos and suffering they have caused. And ironically it is that conflict – and its flood of refugees, that has triggered the chaos in the EU.

If you want authentic insights into how the Middle East became such a mess then read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. You can preview it at:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book order the paperback direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Every Man in this village is a Liar

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In my last blog I referred to this outstanding book by Megan Stack, a young American journalist working for The LA Times, who was sent to Afghanistan to file reports – and later to all the other Middle East war zones. The subtitle is “ An education in the emotional toll of War”.

At the beginning she says it was a rush. She was excited by the danger, and thrilled at living in important times. “It was an adventure, an exhilaration”. But the horrors she saw every day, and the arrogance of her own government using the taxes she paid to cause those horrors, ground her down – and made her ashamed to be American. She concludes “You can survive a war, and not survive a war”.

You can come home physically safe and sound – but you always carry with you what you have done, or what you failed to do. “There is no redemption”, and I would add to that “There are always consequences”. Only the young and foolish – and the terminally naïve – think that there are no consequences.

Here, there is an echo of Graham Green’s THE QUIET AMERICAN – probably the most prescient book on the consequences of America’s naïve and adolescent foreign policy blunderings.

I was at one with Megan until I read her chapter on Saudi Arabia, where I lived and worked for 12 years. Her article is off-target. Not by a lot – but definitely off. She just did not get it – or maybe not have all the information. So what if all her articles are a little off-target? And who would be surprised?

In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” my protaganist is a freelance foreign correspondent, resident in Bahrain, and a specialist in Gulf politics. He reacts violently to celebrity journalists parachuted in, collecting stories from stringers eager to please and earn money (remember “every man in this village is a liar”).

The journalists are under pressure to file dramatic stories , meet deadlines – or feed their nightly TV news slot. And, even if they manage to grasp elusive truths, they are at the mercy of editors who can cut and change the slant of their stories to fit the page, or the TV slot, and perhaps most importantly, the media owners’ agendas.

Specifically in Saudi Arabia Megan covered the sudden sharp shock when Saudi Arabia, relatively calm and peaceful, suffered an outbreak of internal terrorism with attacks in Jeddah, Riyadh and in particular on the OASIS compound in Al-Khobar. But, contrary to the slant of Megan’s essay, this attack was not targeted at Americans.

Immediately after the OASIS attack, an American woman living in the compound circulated an email saying she was safe. She had foolishly gone outside her villa when she heard the shooting and had been wounded by a ricochet. The shooters asked if she was American. When she said yes they told her to go inside and lock her door – and she was left alone. The majority of the 22 people killed were non-Muslim Third World Nationals – Indian, Sri Lanakan and Filipino.

The attacks were designed to discredit and embarrass the Monarchy. The Monarchy’s response was typically brutal and efficient. They identified the 25 ringleaders of terrorism in The Kingdom, and within 12 months hunted down and killed the top 15. The other 10 fled to Yemen. But the Monarchy’s response was also humane.

The Saudi Army called all expatriate consultants to meetings and pleaded with us to move to identified private compounds that they could protect. I moved to a walled compound for Western males only. The outer perimeter was guarded by Saudi Army. The inner perimeter by Saudi Police – and the Compound had its own Security inside the walls. No more terrorist incidents.

Megan understood why the wretched and dispossessed in Afghanistan, or Egypt and elswehere, could breed terrorism – but could not understand why affluent Saudis could support it.

I mentored 12 young Saudi engineering graduates. All had spent 4 years at American colleges. Apparently Westernized, they came to the office in Western clothes; but in the evenings and weekends they changed back into a long white thobe with a chequered ghutra on their heads. And when we were traveling, at prayer times they a either found a local mosque – or we stopped at the roadside while they found a clean place, performed ritual ablutions with bottled water – and prayed. They are believers, without Western sceptism or irony.

They believe that the Holy Q’ran is the true word of Allah (God) passed down to Mohammed the Prophet (PBUH), – and it is the Third and Final Testament for The People of the Book (Jews, Christians and Muslims alike). Some would come with me to the fleshpots of Bahrain – but did not drink alcohol. And they always liked to end the night at a shiska house, smoking a hubbly-bubbly and drinking mint tea. Surprisingly they prefer their quiet way of life.

They do not believe in cold-hearted blind justice, and dog-eat-dog free market capitalism. Their first loyalty is to Islam, then to their family, then to their clan, then to their tribe. They are not like us. Whenever they are allowed elections they vote for a deeply conservative society based on Islam, guided by Imams.

All men (and women) in this (global) village (invented by the West) are liars. Whether deliberate liars like Blair, and Bush and the Neo-Cons with their lust for war, or like journalists and their editors filtering what dubious “facts” they have to hand through their own Western pre-conceptions. They understand the problems facing the Third World – they do not understand the people.

If you want authentic insights into the Middle East then read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”.

You can preview it at:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

If you prefer a real book order the paperback direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Think small . . . think Medieval

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In Australia the debate about so-called asylum seekers continues to polarize public opinion, with the young (and foolish) saying all should be welcome, causing a flood of immigrants ill-prepared for life in a sophisticated economy, and all the consequences of having a large minority of alienated people who feel discriminated and dispossessed.

And whenever the problem is pictorialized we see a good looking young couple with pretty children, ignoring the fact that 70% or more of the so-called asylum seekers are males between the ages of 18 and 40. Very few of them are eligible for legitimate refugee status which assures them entry to Australia.

What is even more relevant is that more than 90% of asylum seekers worldwide stay within their region living in refugee camps in neighbouring countries. Wouldn’t we be better off spending our money helping them to build a better life, and returning the 90% of international asylum seekers flooding Europe (and Australia) who are not bona fide refugees to help them build that better life? How can that be achieved?

Read Rory Stewart’s book, OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS. He was an interim Govenor of a Province in Southern Iraq after the Second Gulf War. His book contains many insights into the situation on the ground outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad, where the delusional interim government hid away in their luxury villas with MacDonalds,and Pizza Hut and Dunkin Donuts, for comfort.

After some time living in a very dangerous and chaotic environment Rory managed to persuade the State Department Yahoos in the Green Zone to send a gunship to his main town. He declared a curfew, and the gunship, fully armed and equipped with night vision circled the town all night, shooting anybody who broke the curfew. Within 2 days “normal life” returned to the town. Street markets sprang up selling fruit and vegetables from the surrounding countryside – and shopkeepers lifted their shutters and began trading again.

In medieval times people lived inside the walls of fortified towns, and at dusk they withdreww from the fields, or from the sea if they lived on the coast, and stayed safe within the walls. Surely in these Hi-Tec times we could build a series of safe and secure walled towns in the refugees’ home regions, patrolled at night by armed drones controlled by computer from a command centre within the town?

It is those lacking in emotional intelligence who see the world as a Hollywood uniformity of young and beautiful people, living in the artificial environment of huge cities, dressed in jeans and T-shirts, locked into their mobile phones/tablets twittering away their days. Just as 90% of all refugees stay in their region, 90% of the human race wants to live a life that is grounded in their culture and history.

Western Governments understand the problems facing the Third World – they do not understand the people. Just as the Movers & Shakers in The Green Zone did not understand Iraq. Read Rory Stewart, and if you want some more insights into the Middle East then read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”.

It is written from the perspective of Western expatriates who washed up there from the 1970s when the price of crude oil jumped from $5 to $25 per barrel and gave the Gulf Emirs wealth (almost) beyond the dreams of avarice, until the events 9/11, which were a direct consequence of that wealth,

You can preview THE GULF at:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition with free delivery worldwide from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Heads in the Sand (of the Middle East)

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Next month is the Sydney Writers’ Festival, and the program, contrary to previous years, is parochial, and dominated by female authors concerned only with domestic and feminist issues.

Just a few years ago the headline authors were giants like Izzeldin Abu Elaish, whose book I SHALL NOT HATE detailed his upbringing in a Palestinian refugee camp, his amazing escape through education as a doctor in Egypt, and his trauma of seeing his wife and daughters killed by Israeli shells. And yet he still seeks reconciliation.

And Ingrid Betancourt, the Columbian senator kidnapped and held captive for 6 years by FARC, and yet showing no signs of this traumatic experience she is trying to be a voice of sanity in Latin America.

And there were live interactive chats arranged with the Arab Spring rebels in Egypt, and with dissdents in Pakistan.

Now the best they can muster from the wide world outside Australia is a session with a female French journalist who once worked with another French journalist who worked for Charlie HEBDO. Bonne Chance!

Why are we burying our heads in the sand? Is the terror of DAESH too terrifying to confront? Are we weary of the conflict(s) in the Middle East?

The Arab Spring has turned rapidly to a Winter of Our Discontent. Afghanistan has fallen off the radar, presumably because the Taliban are reasserting their control. Iraq is a total mess, and the civil war in Syria drags on without resolution or road map. And of course always in the background is the atavistic 50 year old war between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Will there ever be enough of blood?

When  Yitzak Rabin declared “Enough of blood” and tried to make a lasting peace with Yasser Arafat he was assassinated by a by his own kind. There will never be peace in the Middle East until the West no longer needs the cheap energy that crude oil supplies. Oil is a vital strategic asset that brings billions of dollars to the region, dollars that fuel the conflict(s).

The Middle East, and more specifically the Arabian/Persian Gulf, is the site of a new Great Game where the Politicians, and Movers & Shakers of the wannabe Great Powers play out their war games. There will never be enough of blood until the last drop of oil is spilled.

If you want some insights into the Middle East from the perspective of Western expatriates who washed up there from the 1970s when the price of crude oil jumped from $5 to $25 per barrel and gave the Gulf Emirs wealth (almost) beyond the dreams of avarice, until the events 9/11, which where a direct consequence of that wealth, then read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”.

You can preview it at:

www.amazon.com

or

www.amazon.co.uk

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition with free delivery worldwide from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Who is The Little House of Horrors?

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This week I saw an amazing live stage production of the cult classic rock & roll musical THE LITTLE HOUSE OF HORRORS. It is about a weird hybrid plant from China that almost dies until they find it flourishes on human blood. On this diet it grows into a huge monster of a plant that eats people live. Cuttings of the plant are sold around the world and the resulting monster plants end up consuming whole societies – and the world.

Years ago I saw Frank OZ’s movie version with my young daughter, and, with our advanced sense of the ridiculous, we loved it. But we loved it on a superficial level as a showbizzie rock musical, with great music, and a monster that really rocked – and some delicious horror trimmings. Now older, sadder and hopefully wiser – while my daughter and I still sat there with huge silly grins on our faces at the Doo Wop shrillness of the Harpies Chorus (The Supremes they are not), and rocked to the monster’s Rock & Roll – I realized that it is allegorical.

Just under the surface it is about how FAME (remember that musical and its tag “I’m gonna live forever”), and celebrity, sucks the blood out of people, consumes them, and destroys families and cultures. And going deeper again, it is an allegory for America, cynically using Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll to debauch youth worldwide in order to push their free-market laissez faire capitalism agenda under the false banners of freedom and democracy in order to rule the world.

And if you think that my paranoia is showing, then read EVERY MAN IN THIS VILLAGE IS A LIAR, by Megan Stack. She is a well-educated American journalist who at 23 was sent to cover the wars in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, and she reached the conclusion that at best American Foreign Policy is delusional, and at worst it is a cynical ploy to try and dominate the world. And she believes that the War on Terror is fake, and has failed.

One chapter in her book has particular resonance. Superficially she enjoyed Israel; and modern, bright and safe Tel Aviv in particular. But she could not shake off the knowledge that all the youngsters prancing in the discos had had weapons training, had done compulsory military service – and she had seen them as teenage soldiers taunting and humiliating elderly Palestians at check points, refusing to give them priority for urgent medical treatment. And pregnant women frequently gave birth in taxis waiting in endless gridlocks to get to hospital, and not allowed on fast roads reserved for West Bank settlers. And she knew that sweating in the restaurant kitchens were illegal Eritrean refugees, and that most of the strikingly pretty single girls dancing in the discos were East European whores. Now matter how hard she tried she could not ignore the dark underbelly of Israel.

And nor could she ignore the fact that it was American taxpayers money that funded the mighty Israeli military machine that enables them to keep the Palestinians in subjugation. She makes the point “You can recover from what people do to you: you cannot recover from what you do to others.”

It resonates for me because she is like Mick, the protaganist in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. He too is a young journalist sent to the Middle East in the early 60s, and he is shocked by the Feudal barbarity of the region, and by the corruption and cynical exploitation of those feudal societies by slick Western governments desperate for cheap oil.

Just like Megan, Mick cannot pass through and enjoy the airconditioned and gleaming marble citidels of modern shopping malls and international airport terminals that oil wealth brought – with their shops full of the finest duty free luxury goods the world can offer, staffed by lovely young maidens with dazzling smiles – without noticing the tired old Amahs mopping the urinals, and the coolies sweating in 100 degree heat and 100 per cent humidity of the baggage halls.

And beyond that, modern cities that have the latest motorways and satellite communications, and no sewerage systems. And refugee camps where the sewers run open in the road and kids play there. Kids without hope, and without a future.

I am not, not ever have been a journalist, but I did keep journals throughout my 40 years in and out of The Arabain/Persian Gulf, and Mick is a construct, an alter ego designed to tell the stories of events that I witnessed, or were reported to me by reliable sources, expatriates like me, 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 with free delivery worldwide from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com