Tag Archives: Arabian Gulf

Second time Farce

Posted on by
Reply

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

Every Man in this Village is a Liar (Part 2)

Posted on by
Reply

In my last blog on Megan Stack’s brilliant book I said that I was at one with Megan’s views on the Middle East 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. And what if all her articles are a little off-target?

Maybe I consider her article off-target because I look at it through a male prism – and she looks at it through a female prism. Certainly females in Saudi Arabia are not afforded the privileges that Western females enjoy. They are not allowed to drive, and in public they are asked, but not forced, to be veiled. And increasingly, young women are not veiled, and even those who are throw the veil back in the shopping malls and supermarkets.

Male and female life is segregated, but there are Universities and Hospitals and professional career paths for women. Inside the ARAMCO complexes unveiled Saudi women are employed, not just as secretaries and waitresses, but as graphic artists, HR managers and engineers.

And if you think that the average Saudi woman is repressed here are two personal anecdotes.

I was asked to help a male graduate trainee to prepare an important Powerpoint presentation after office hours. About half an hour into overtime he had a call from his young wife who told him if he wasn’t home in an hour his dinner would go in the bin, and he would be locked out. He didn’t go home in time, and she carried out her threat.

I was in a meeting with a Saudi Engineering Superintendent discussing a £300 million project when the phone rang. What was obviously a female voice was screeching on the other end of the phone. When he put the phone down he said, sheepishly . . . “I have to go home, my wife has found a leak in the bathroom.” $300 million project abandoned while he went home and fixed the leak in the bathroom.

I don’t mean to trivialize the situation of females in Saudi Arabia – but when I compare Saudi women walking elegantly around the malls and supermarkets in stilleto heels, well cut black abayas, a chiffon scarf loosely around their heads, and an expensive bag slung casually on their shoulders, with Western women inside the compounds in thongs, ragged shorts that show the cheeks of their arses, and crop tops that show their underwear, I know which, as a man, I prefer.

If every man in this Western Global village is a liar, then so is every woman who dresses like a tart while insisting she is a lady.

The veiling of women is a tribal custom that is dying out, and is not a requirement of the Holy Q’ran. The Q’ran (and The Bible) merely say that women should go forth modestly. There is nothing modest about strident Western feminists demanding their rights while retaining their privileges.

As I said in my last article the West simply does not understand the people of the Middle East and their steadfast faith and deeply held beliefs. As a friend of mine said, “They write backwards, they read backwards – and they think backwards.” He probably meant it as an insult, but in his naivety he was highlighting Rudyard Kipling’s “East is East and West is West – and never the twain shall meet.”

For Western adultlescents (a.k.a. Charlie Hedbo) to mock their deeply held beliefs is insulting and insane. And for women to expose and flaunt themselves is just as insulting, and insane – and both forms of mockery invite retaliation.

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

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.

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.”

Fascism, Communism . . . and Picasso

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday I happened on a book about Picasso’s creation of his Civil War masterpiece GUERNICA. In a series of brutal images etched in black across a huge stark white canvas he expressed the rage he felt at the carpet bombing of a small town in Spain that killed 80 percent of the inhabitants. This, the first time bombing had been aimed at civilians in order to terrorise them – and a precursor to the carpet bombing of Coventry, Liverpool and London by the Nazis, the 1,000 bomber raids of the Allied forces that flattened Dresden and Berlin – the ultimate horrific atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and the American bombings of Hanoi, and the NATO terror bombings of Belgrade.
America and The West wants to spread democracy and freedom, as long as it is the democracy and freedom they want. And if hundreds of thousands of people are killed and maimed in the name of freedom so be it.
How quickly the momentous events of the 20th Century have become history, and how quickly in this age of the triumph of Capitalism have we forgotten the struggle of Communism versus Fascism that dominated the last Century.
The Spanish civil War was a consequence of extreme right wing Monarchists refusing to accept the will of the people in electing (twice) a Socialist government and replacing it with a Fascist dictatorship by force of arms. And this has been replicated in Latin America many times, particularly in Chile, where President Allende was assassinated by the CIA and replaced with the military dictator Pinochet, and in Iran where the legitimate elected government of Mossadeq was replaced by the vainglorious and corrupt Shah – and now in Egypt, where the elected Muslim government of Morsi has been replaced by a military junta.
In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I have tried to set in the political context of the 20th Century a series of stories spanning 40 years from the 1960s as The Arabian/Persian Gulf developed rapidly from a sleepy backwater of the British Empire into a fabulously wealthy, and hedonistic arena of international significance fueled by the Western greed for cheap energy supplies. The history of that turbulent period is shown through the stories of archetypal expatriates who washed up in The Gulf, their lives shattered by the blunderings of US (and British) foreign policies in the region.
In particular one story “If You Don’t . . . Someone Else Will” set during the First Gulf War deals with the American massacre of Iraqis fleeing from Kuwait to Baghdad along Highway 80 – an infamous stretch of road littered with burned out trucks, cars and buses, and hundreds of bodies including women and children that came to be called “The Mile of Death”. It sickened the military into telling the politicians “Enough is enough” and brought that war to an end.
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

Posted on by
Reply

         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

Posted on by
Reply

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.

 

 

 

Are some (sweaty) Animals more equal that others

Posted on by
Reply

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.