Category Archives: Uncategorized

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

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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.

The rich ARE different

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At the moment I am re-reading THE GREAT GATSBY – and maybe one of the reasons it is a classic is that it resonates well above the hedonistic world of the Long Island uber-rich, and their Broadway showbiz sycophants, that is its setting. Truly the microcosm reflects the macrocosm.
 In the denoument the narrator reflects on the behaviour of the vastly wealthy couple who are at the centre of the book:
“They were careless people Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and people and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” ,
And so it is with US foreign policy. In their greed for cheap oil they have literally killed hundreds of thousands of people and smashed up the lives of millions more in the Middle East – deposing a legitimate democratic government in Iran and installing the corrupt and despotic Shah, blindly supporting Israel’s destabilization of Lebanon and annexation of the West Bank, thereby enabling the rise of the Shia Ayatollah and Sunni militant Islamic extremism.
Look at the chaos now in Syria and Iraq caused by America’s naïve belief in their “exceptionalism” and their “Manifest Destiny” to bring freedom and democracy to the world. A belief that smacks all too sadly of the Divine Right of Kings, much as their use of drones to subjugate and suppress anybody who opposes them smacks of 19th Century British Imperial Gunboat diplomacy. (Plus ca Change . . . plus c’est la meme chose). And what will happen when they leave Afghanistan?
But so what? With the discovery of vast deposits of shale oil and coal seam gas America is no longer reliant on cheap MidEast oil. And their focus is now switching to the rise of China that must be contained if they are to retain their exceptional hegemony. And so, like the uber-rich nation they are, they will just walk away and let others clean up their mess.
In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I also tried to show the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm. It is a series of stories spanning 40 years from the 1960s as The Gulf developed rapidly from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into a fabulously wealthy, and hedonistic arena of international significance. But the history of that turbulent period is told through the stories of archetypal expatriates who washed up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf, their lives shattered by the blunderings of US (and British) foreign policies in the region. The proxy wars of the Buraimi Oasis and the Dhofar campaign, and the corruption of the UN in evading the oil embargo in Iraq etc., etc.
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.

I Love Americans . . . except when they behave like Yankees

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         This is one of Winston Churchill’ s (a politician intelligent enough to write his own speeches) pithy comments – and I understand exactly what he meant. Presently I am reading Oliver Stone’s (the film director of the “Greed is Good” movie WALL STREET) book The Untold History of the United States in which he explores the delusional, and sometimes hypocritical, “exceptionalism” that dominates American foreign policy. The idea that the USA has a “Manifest Destiny” to bring Freedom, Justice and Democracy to the world no matter what the cost.

         This is of course what led to the wars of attrition in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other proxy wars too numerous to mention. But what surprised me was that this is not a recent idea of the Bush/Cheney Neo-Cons and their Zionist Co-conspirators. Oliver Stone starts with Woodrow Wilson, and his statement that it was legitimate to bring about regime change in foreign governments in order to prise open markets for American goods. Typical Yankee greed cloaked in self righteousness.

    And he joined WWI at a very late stage, not for any moral reason, but to ensure that America had a seat at the Versailles Conference so that America could exert influence in Europe. Typical Yankee hypocrisy.

        And that brings me to believe in the American Southerners who call the Civil War The War of Northern Aggression. In their eyes it was not at all about freeing the slaves – it was the Yankees’ greed to get their hands on the tobacco and cotton wealth of the South.

   It was Winston Churchill when he was First Lord of The Admiralty who made the comment that “Oil is the ultimate prize equated with World Mastery” . And it was the Yankee greed for World Mastery (an abundance of cheap oil) that led to the rapid development of the Arabian/Persian Gulf and its consequences. The deposing of a legitimate democratic government in Iran and support for the despicable Shah that led to the Ayatollahs, and the support for corrupt and despotic monarchies that has led to fundamental Islam and Al Qa’eda.

        The thread that Middle East politic is “All about Oil” runs through my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. It is a series of stories spanning 40 years from the 1960s as The Gulf developed rapidly from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into a fabulously wealthy, and hedonistic arenas of international significance in stark contrast to the harsh, barbaric and unforgiving deserts that surround them.

          You can 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.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

Lest We Forget

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Here in Australia ANZAC day, commemorating first of all the carnage of the failed landing at Gallipolli in WWI and then the many Aussies and Kiwis who fell in WWII, Korea, VietNam, Afghanistan and Iraq – is a valiant attempt to prevent people forgetting the terrible sacrifice and struggle that has created and maintained this amazing Western civilization we are living in. But people all too easily do forget, and live in a world of endless entertainment and denial.

          WWI slaughtered 10 million people and was supposed be the war to end all wars and create a world fit for heroes. No such thing happened.

          Quite apart from all the fallen heroes, there are many more who remain alive but whose lives have been shattered by the horrors of war. What used to be called simply shell shock, and is now labelled as post traumatic stress disorder, is affecting more and more veterans in this better educated and informed world as they realize the futility of fighting in the dirty wars of vainglorious politicians.

         In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” there are two stories that deal with the effects of war on young men.

        The first concerns Dudley, a young British cavalry officer who fought in the Battle for the Buraimi Oasis, a proxy war between the USA and Britain fought in the Trucial States of the Arabian Peninsula to gain control of the massive oil deposits of The Empty Quarter.

        The second concerns Buddy, an American volunteer Marine who fought in VietNam. He went away a hero and returned to the booes and jeers of the anti-Vietnam college boy intelligentsia.

       All too soon these wars have been forgotten to be replaced by the futile wars of attrition in Afghanistan and Iraq.

      And without wanting to trivialize the horrors of war – was it only 2008 when the GFC happened? Already the stock market is being pumped to unsustainable highs, and the real estate market is booming because interest rates are low. What will happen when (not if) they rise: another toxic mortgage/banking scandal.

      And one of the stories in my book concerns Captain Bob (Robert Smith) a supertanker captain who lost his life savings in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the Dubai based bank that went under in yet another banking scandal. And Dubai almost went under a mountain of debt in the GFC, and yet here it is again powering ahead with yet another property boom.

HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET

 

You can 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 edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

The sound of Axes being Ground is DEAFENING (Part 2)

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Following on from my comments on the MH370 hijacking I had completely forgotten that the Prologue to my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” starts from the premise of a possible hijack that causes the protagonist, a world weary journalist who thinks he is about to die (and is not unhappy about that), to review his life in the Middle East – and the roller coaster ride of his past life in all of its exhilarating and frightening diversity in that atavistic and brutal part of the world.

This was my fictional means to present a series of linked stories that are authentic and journalistic based on events that I witnessed myself, or were reported to me by reliable sources. Each story features a character typical of the sorts of expatriate who wash up in the Arabian/Persian Gulf for whatever reason. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances trying to survive in a rapidly changing and hostile world.

It is in such situations that the surprising strength (or weakness) of characters shows through – revealing the truth.

You can 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.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

The sound of Axes being ground . . . is DEAFENING

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Normally I do not comment on current affairs that are not directly related to my particular interest (obsession)with the Arabian/Persian Gulf. However I do have some personal experience of the type of situation that now surrounds the disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370.

Early in my career I was in charge of SHELL’s jet fuel quality control laboratory at Heathrow airport. During that time a BA jet that we had fuelled crashed just after take-off killing everybody on board. Within a few days my laboratory was swarming with an accident investigation team that included engineers from the airframe and engine manufacturers.

I was amazed, and scared, of how aggressive they were. They demanded all my documentation and fuel samples. Fortunately my documentation and fuel quality was perfect – and one of the Government investigators took me on one side and explained their attitude. Because of the millions of dollars involved in potential lawsuits and loss of business, they were not looking for the truth – they were looking for somebody to shoulder the blame. And in these situations they usually blame the pilot, because he is dead and cannot defend himself. And that is what happened in my case, and is happening now with MH370. Every effort is being made to blame the poor pilot.

To me it is a bungled hijack. Somebody with flying experience took over the plane, but unlike the 9/11 hijackers did not have the skills. Hence the rapid rise to 42,000 feet and then the descent to 5,000 feet, and then the crazy navigation that took them out over open ocean until they ran out of fuel. Presumably the hijacker(s) were supposed to head for Australia, or The Maldives, or Sri Lanka to land and make their demands.

In my career in the international oil industry I travelled millions of miles on long haul jets – and experienced several frightening emergencies. One such emergency, when my flight was hit by lightning and tipped on its side and fell 1,000 feet, I have used as a basis of a story in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. It is only in such situations that the true strength or weakness of characters shows through.

The book is a series of stories spanning 40 years about the archetypical characters who wash up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf trying to survive in a rapidly changing world. They are people drawn to a highly paid and dangerous life-on-the-edge where men are men and women are no better than they ought to be.

You can 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 edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

 

 

 

It’s all about OIL

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The lust for war that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 has never been satisfactorily explained. The blatant lies about WMDs and Saddam’s links to Al-Qa’eda were soon discredited.

Certainly the neo-Cons led by Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz had an agenda to protect Israel from Iraq’s growing regional power (and his long barrelled gun)- but is the Jewish lobby that powerful that the US would enter a full scale war on their behalf? And regime change was the feeblest excuse thought up as a knee jerk reaction to the scorn heaped on Bush & Blair (aka Laurel & Hardy: “Another fine mess you got me in Ollie”)

From my perspective as a long time Middle East oilman it’s all about oil.

When the US troops invaded Baghdad they immediately threw a cordon around the Oil Ministry – but totally failed to protect the Ministry of Antiquities. Presumably while thieves looted the museums of their priceless treasures the US authorities looted all the seismic data about Iraq’s oil reserves? Recent events are proving that the US was right about Iraq’s importance to the international oil market.

Iraq has now replaced Iran as OPEC’s second largest oil exporter and is earning oil revenues of some $200 Billion per year predicted to double to $400 Billion by 2020.

Will this fabulous oil wealth help relieve the violence and corruption that engulfs Iraq at the moment, or only deepen the divide between Sunni and Shia, Kurds and other minorities?

When I published my book THE GULF 3 years ago it was prescient.

The pitch on the back cover says:
“It’s all about oil. If there was no oil the only foreigners in the Middle East would be a few biblical scholars and archaeologists, being driven mad by the heat, the flies and the dust – and thieving Bedouins who can steal the wheels off of a truck while it is still in motion.”

My book is a series of stories spanning 40 years highlighting the archetypical characters who wash up in The Arabian/Persian Gulf trying to survive in a rapidly changing world. They are people drawn to a highly paid and dangerous life-on-the-edge where men are men and women are no better than they ought to be.

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 edition from:
http://www.thebookdepository.co.uk
The ISBN number is 978-1908147097
They offer free delivery worldwide.

I hope you enjoy it.

Are some (sweaty) Animals more equal that others

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While not wanting to suggest the ultimate male fantasy that all women want to be ravished is correct, there is strong anecdotal and scientific evidence to suggest that they do prefer a dominant male partner in their sex life.

In a recent article a female journalist said that among her friends – professional couples both in well paid jobs who shared everything equally (paying the mortgage and household bills, housework and taking care of the kids) – the women were dissatisfied with their sex life. It lacked a frisson (sexual tension?) because their relationship was based on friendship and mutual respect and had become almost platonic. One woman said it was like sleeping with her brother. This feeds into the fantasy that women do not really want a caring, tender and supportive partner who is in touch with his female side – not when the lights are out. They really want someone more animal. One woman actually said she only fancied her husband when he came home straight from the gym all hot and sweaty. Are modern Western women in denial?

A recent scientific study in America supports this. A series of erotic images was shown to a group of men and a group of women hooked up to sensors measuring their physical and emotional responses. The men and the women responded almost exactly the same way to the images. But when questioned 75% of the men were honest about their arousal – but 75% of the women lied and said they were not aroused. In Saudi Arabia a dominant male society where women are repressed (at least in public) women exploit the males’ outstanding weakness – his desire to see females in the flesh, and have sex – to wield a surprising amount of power. Read the story I’VE NEVER KNOWN A WOMAN WHO WOULDN’T DANCE in my book THE GULF about a new wife performing an erotic dance of arousal.

In some ways I am ashamed of this story because it is not a work of fiction. It is an account of that dance by a Western cameraman who filmed it; and it was validated by a Western woman who had played flute at many Saudi weddings and seen this many times. The cameraman said it was the most erotic thing he had ever seen.

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.

The Myth of Multiculturalism

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When you look at the events unfolding in Syria, and before that Iraq, and before that Lebanon, and even before that in Northern Ireland – or indeed any flashpoint in the world in the last hundred or so years – how can anybody with even a single brain cell support multiculturalism. And yet the developed world continues to parrot the so-called benefits of multi-cultural, multi-ethnic societies.
The legitimate uprising that began as a protest against the corrupt and despotic Ba’thist Assad regime has splintered into a conflict riven with many different religious, sectarian and tribal groups who spend as much time and energy fighting each other as fighting against Assad. There are Sunni and Shia, Salafists and Druze and Hezbollah militias, and Twelvers and Sufis and followers of Al Qu’eda and other professional jihadists.
If there an an outcome will it be the same as Iraq where a brutal, corrupt and repressive but efficient secular regime has been replaced by a brutal, corrupt and repressive religious and inefficient regime?
40 years ago Lebanon was a sophisticated and successful and very beautiful country (Beirut was the Paris of The East) dominated by a well educated Christian majority. But the high Muslim birthrate meant the pendulum swung to an Islamic majority – and of course they wanted a bigger slice of the pie. At first it was a classic Marxist struggle between the Haves and the Have-Nots. But it splintered all too quickly into a religious/ sectarian struggle between Catholic/Orthodox/Protestant Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims and all their various Sects – and of course Palestinian refugees and Iran backed Hezbollah.
Northern Ireland was a lot simpler. A savage battle between Celtic tribes made worse by the religious differences between Irish Catholics and Scottish Protestants. If that fairly simple struggle took 400 years to resolve what hope is there for the much more complex Middle East – and I have not even mentioned the Israeli problem?
There is a joke in the Middle East that when God created Lebanon with its Mediterranean beaches, its snow capped mountains, lush valleys and cedar forests the Lebanese said “God, thank you for giving us this Paradise on Earth.” God replied, “You haven’t met your neighbours yet.”
The Arabian/Persian Gulf is (almost) as simple as Northern Ireland. Dominated by the conflict between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia there is Shia unrest and uprising from time to time in Bahrain and the towns along the Saudi East coast against their Sunni rulers – but it has been contained. And potential problems in the UAE and Oman were resolved in the 50s by proxy wars between the USA and Britain. For the moment Yemen continues to be unstable, a haven for Al Qu’eda – but drones are taking care of that?
In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I use the largely forgotten political turmoil and proxy wars, and The West’s greed for the fabulous oil wealth of Iran and Saudi Arabia, as an exotic background to my stories of expatriates working there. Flotsam and Jetsam of the developed world who have washed up in The Gulf to escape the wants of women and Nanny Britain to live a dangerous and highly paid life on the edge.
You can preview my book 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.

From The Magic Kingdom to Middle Earth

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Often during my 12 year long sojourn in Saudi Arabia we referred to that country as The Magic Kingdom to account for the unreal Disney like experience of living in a technologically advanced Westernized environment inside a feudal society. And just recently I visited New Zealand to see that, in the wake of Sir Peter Jackson’s successful adaptations of Tolkien, New Zealand is adopting the persona of Middle Earth.
 The safety videos on NZ are peopled by Bilbo, Gandalf, Smurd the dragon etc. – when you arrive in Wellington airport the terminal says “Welcome to Middle Earth” – and like all unreality it has a element of reality. Going to New Zealand is like stepping back in time to a land that time forgot.
Stunningly physically beautiful, sparsely populated by well mannered people who take their litter home, there is very little traffic on the contoured two lane roads that swoop up and down and wind between pine woods and verdant green fields with just the occasional logging truck bearing down on you to keep you alert.
And yet underlying this sleepy idyll is a violent and turbulent caulron of volcanic activity that sends plumes of steam, and jets of evil smelling hot water, in the air, and occasional violent earthquakes that have destroyed towns like Napier and cities like Christchurch and killed and injured many people.
It as if God realized that He had created Heaven on Earth in New Zealand and so he counterbalanced that with its own private Hades just below the surface. And the reverse is true in the Middle East.
When God realized he had created a Hell on Earth in Arabia, with its searing heat and barren deserts that can scarcely support life, He gave them the riches of the world’s biggest oil deposits. And that in itself is a mixed blessing.
Imagine if there had been no oil. No nation building, no Gulf Wars, no regime changes under the cloak of bringing freedom and democracy, no money to fund the excesses of greedy politicians and pseudo royal families, and no money to fund Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Just tribal Bedouins subsisting on dates and camels milk with kept going by their simple belief in the will of Allah, and dependent on the clan and tribal loyalties for survival.
In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I have tried to cover all the bases about the impact of big oil on what was a sleepy backwater of The British Empire from the perspective of ex-patriates. Men accustomed to working in highly paid and dangerous jobs in hostile environments, addicted to a life-on-the-edge to escape the feminized intensive care society that the West has become. Men who work hard and play hard.
You can preview my book 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