Tag Archives: Iraq

It’s all about OIL

Posted on by
Reply

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.

The Myth of Multiculturalism

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Who Dunnit to JFK?

Posted on by
Reply

On this the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of JFK there is still no reliable answer to Who Dunnit. The ridiculous lone gunman single bullet Warren Commission whitewash has long ago been debunked leaving the field wide open for all sorts of conspiracy theories. One of the most credible for me is the one told to me by a VietNam Vet who was a sharpshooter (sniper) during that war and I used this as the starter for my story

YA HEAR WHAT AH’M SAYIN. 

The conversation went like this:

“You were in Viet Nam?” Mick asked.

“Sure was . . . did three tours In Country,” Buddy said loudly and proudly. “Ah didn’t wait for no Draft neither. Dropped out of Aggie – Texas Agricultural & Mechanical to you Limies . . . and volunteered.”

“You must feel bad you lost that war?”

“It were McNamara and his bean counter brain that lost it. How does yawl fight a war gradually? Yah hit them with everythin ya got from the get go.”

“Even when you went all out for total war you didn’t defeat the Viet Cong.”

“Charlie don’t value life like us Christian folks . . . he didn’t care how many people he lost . . . and JFK didn’t help neither. No wonder the Army got rid of him and replaced him with a good ole boy like LBJ.”

Mick’s was now on full alert. While he had never accepted the ridiculous lone assassin single bullet findings of the Warren Commission he found it impossible to believe that the US Army had pulled a Coup d’Etat. But no matter how much scorn Mick heaped on Buddy’s theory he remained adamant. JFK had been triangulated by army sharpshooters:

“Shitt, the Army is real proud of what they done. At the end of mah training they showed us a film of sharpshooters boarding a train in Dallas the day after Kennedy’s assassination. That dadgum Yankee pinko liberal was doin’ deals with the Commies to get us out of Nam.”

What gives my story credence is that Eisenhower in his final speech as President warned Kennedy to beware  of the mighty military/industrial machine in the USA: and Nixon, the Vice President and later President, firmly believed that LBJ was behind the assassination.

The full story is in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” and like all 10 stories in my book it is journalistic. They are all fictionalized accounts of events I witnessed, or were reported to me by a reliable source. They illuminate the fascinating region of the Arabian/Persian Gulf as seen through the eyes of  expatriates like myself who lead highly paid, but isolated, dangerous and lonely lives in the search for black gold – the crude oil that made the region mega-rich, and a target for all the greedy chancers in the Western World

You can preview my book at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

And download it if you have a Kindle. If you do not, or prefer a paperback, you can order from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

They offer free shipping worldwide.

 

 

See Cordoba . . . and live . . . and let live.

Posted on by
Reply

My final trip in Spain, to Cordoba, confirmed what I have always felt—that it is the 700 years of Moorish rule that makes Spain unique and different. The deeply felt Catholicism that exists in Spain also exists in many European and Latin countries; but nowhere in the Western World has the imprint of the Middle Eastern/North African Muslim Caliphates been left so indelibly.

In my last blog I dealt with the world famous Mezquita or Al Jama mosque in Cordoba that rivalled Damascus and Baghdad in its day with its mesmerizing endless avenues of hundreds of interlinked arches of alternate pink and cream stripes that are stylized palm trees dimly lit by bronze lanterns that hang on chains. And 8 kms outside Cordoba are the remains of Medinah Azahara (Brilliant Town) a beautifully planned and built city  for the religious, social, cultural and political administration of Al-Andalus (Andalucia)—a Moorish Spain that stretched to the banks of the Duero River.

But to go beyond the stunning physical beauty of Moorish Spain perhaps the true inheritance of the Moors is that Jews, and Christians, lived in harmony with their Muslim rulers, who allowed them their own laws, business and religious life, and their own districts, and left them in peace and prosperity provided they paid their taxes. And that heritage lives on today in the well mannered, elegant and courteous people of Cordoba.

It was Christian persecution that drove the Sephardic Jews from Spain, and the Reyes Catolicas (Christian Monarchs) who finally drove out the Caliphs from their beautiful cities like Cordoba, Granada, and Sevilla.

“History repeats itself” so the saying goes. Is it we Christians who are the cause of the conflict between the Semitic tribes of Jews and Arabs in the Middle East? Or at the very least are we, with our millions of petro-dollars and our greedy search for cheap oil, the catalysts?

In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” you can read how our greed has been the cause of so much of the trouble in the Near and Middle East. It’s all about the search for cheap oil supplies, and the effects that this has on the expatriates who live highly paid, but isolated, dangerous and lonely lives in order to fulfil this greed.

You can preview my book at:

http://amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a KINDLE.

From Friday November 15, 2013 my book is on a promotion by Amazon. For the first 36 hours you can download it for just $0.99, for the next 36 hours for $1.99, for the next 36 hours $2.99, and for the next 36 hours $3.99. Finally it will revert back to its recommended price of $4.99.

Hurry and get a real bargain. If nothing else my character driven stories are authentic (read the 5 star reviews of previous readers who have experience of working and living in THE GULF). To paraphrase a more famous author than me “I may not have written the whole truth; but I have not written anything that is not the truth.”

Good reading.

Enjoy

Are Cathedrals Christian?

Posted on by
Reply

The long farewell to my Spanish home is coming rapidly to a close, so I decided to visit Sevilla and Cordoba—the heart and the soul of Spain in Andalucia—and of course in addition to touring the tapas bars, and watching a flamenco puro show complete with virtuoso guitarist, emotional cante jondo singer, and passionate dancer—I visited the cathedrals in both cities.

Seville Cathedral is an architectural mess. The third largest in the world after St. Peter’s in Rome and St. Paul’s in London, it took 400 years to build and matches the ambitions of the builders (they wanted to be thought of as mad). It is a hotchpotch of styles—only the Giralda, the tower in one corner that resembles an ornate Doges Palace, has any grace. And inside it is like all the cathedrals I have ever visited—an exercise in the overwhelming arrogance of power and wealth.

A high altar of huge proportions, ornate and heavily decorated with gold leaf, and all around the walls various chapels competing with each other in their opulence.  And a Treasury that contains solid gold chalices, headdresses and altar pieces made from solid gold presumably stolen from the Incas. This is not exactly what Christ taught is it? “It is more difficult for a rich man . . . camel through the eye of a needle etc . . .”

And Cordoba was even worse because they have built the cathedral on top of the pre-existing mosque—the world famous Mezquita or Al Jama mosque. At eye level the Mezquita is mesmerizing, hundreds of interlinked arches of alternate pink and cream stripes that are stylized palm trees dimly lit by bronze lanterns that hang on chains. But when you raise your eyes you are into Christian Cathedral Gothic. Soaring columns and vaulted ceilings that make you giddy built on top of the delicate Moorish arches. And at the centre they have added a huge high altar with plaster images of saints and virgins. Sacrilege, or whatever is the Arabic equivalent.

What is worse they have bricked up the Mihrab, the holy place where the Imam led prayers, and you can only look above the wall and see the brilliant Ajulejos (colourful and intricate tilework that is yet another legacy of the Moors) and delicate filigree of carvings in clay that have survived for more than 1,000 years. And even here the Christians have added a plaster saint on one wall of the Mihrab. Is triumphalism a Christian virtue?

In my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” you can read how another Western sin—Greed—has been the cause of so much of the trouble between Arabs, and Jews, and the Western world. It’s all about the search for cheap oil supplies, and the effects that the endless flow of petro-dollars has had on the expatriates who live highly paid, but isolated, dangerous and lonely lives in order to fulfil this greed.

You can preview my book at:

http://amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a KINDLE. If you do not, or you prefer a real book, you can order from:

http://thebookdepositry.co.uk

They offer free delivery worldwide

 

When did the Circus leave town?

Posted on by
Reply

When I was  child I loved it when the circus came to town. I loved the skills of the tumblers and acrobats, the skill and daring of the pretty girls bareback riding—and of course the heart- stopping daring and courage of the lion tamers who went alone into a cage full of wild beasts of the jungle. But the slapstick of clowns frightened me, it seemed cruel and heartless, and I hated the freak shows that clustered around the circus.

And if the world of Politics can be seen as a circus, then the skilful tumblers and acrobats, the pretty and skilful bare-back riders, and the brave and fearless lion tamers have gone, leaving behind the clowns and the freaks—vain, incompetent, corrupt, egotistical and damaged personalities jostling for their place in the limelight, and more than their share of the action, leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.

I cannot even bring myself to write about the freaks, although most literature and drama these days seems to concentrate on dysfunctional and bizarre people as though in some way this illuminates human nature. I prefer to write about normal people in abnormal situations that force them to act “out of character”—or perhaps enables them to reveal their true nature?   

But you can read about a 20th Century clown, Captain Bob, in my  story FALSE ECONOMY that is part of a collection of stories in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” set in The Arabian/Persian Gulf from the 1960s until the events of 9/11 changed everything.

You can preview my book at:

http://amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a KINDLE. If you do not, or you prefer a real book, you can order from:

http://thebookdepositry.co.uk

They offer free delivery worldwide

 

Moors & Christians go Hollywood

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday I blogged about the MOROS y CRISTIANOS Fiesta in our small Mediterranean town in Spain saying nobody wants to be a Christian because, while the Moors dress up in splendid robes and jewels and swagger down the avenida smoking fine Cuban cigars, the Christians drag along in grey chain mail and a white sheet with a red cross. Well they have solved the recruitment problem.

After a 10 year gap I attended the grand parade last evening and the Christians now swagger first down the avenida smoking cigars and dressed up in shiny armour and winged helmets that owe more to Darth Vader than history – in fact the whole parade in typically Hollywood fashion sacrifices history for effect and became more like glamorous Carnival in Rio.

The parade started with beautiful jet-black Andalucian stallions being ridden at high speed up and down the avenida, stopping occasionally to prance and dance. These are the tallest and most elegant horses you have ever seen – and they still have the pretty head and arched neck of their much smaller Arab thoroughbred ancestors. And the riders dressed like Russell Crowe in GLADIATOR.

Then came ranks of Christian soldiers looking very aggressive in their body armour carrying pikes and huge halberds and accompanied by bands playing with thunderous drumming, wailing fifes and triumphant sounding brass (the Spanish love noise but Alhamdulillah [Thanks to God] we were spared fireworks).

I thought Christianity was about peace and love, but these Christians, particularly the Knights Templars in their faces hidden behind highly polished medieval helmets with the pointed visors closed, and white banners with a black Maltese Cross, looked fuller of hate than love. And then a break from history: ranks of female soldiers with polished breast plates suitably modified and lots of flashing thigh between leather knee boots and micro- mini skirts.

And then another break with history:

A flock of geese being herded by two beautiful young maidens clad only in sackcloth (vestal virgins?), followed by simple little carts pulled by mules and containing goats and attended by more maidens throwing packets of raisins to the crowd – and then donkey carts being attended by Mexican peasants??????

But the Moors had the finale:

First a succession of scantily clad dancing girls waving flimsy veils around their bodies – how did Salome get in there? – or possibly they represented the concubines of the Harem? And close on their heels came the resplendent ranks of Moors looking much less warlike than the Christians, and hell bent on enjoying life. (Let’s face it the dancing girls were just ahead). And the same loud and insistent drumming, and the fifes now playing the sliding quarter tone Arab scales and not the Celtic pentatonics of the Christians – and the brass less triumphant but shouting defiance.

And then the grand finale:

A splendid Caliph in all of his pomp riding a huge ornate float pulled by two magnificent brown bulls (the ultimate Mediterranean symbol of masculine virility) attended by a bodyguard on a camel that also pranced and danced. The camel had  multi-coloured hand woven tribal saddle bags and tassles – and the dark skinned rider had the sky blue head dress of the TUAREG – the fiercely independent North African nomad.

            For all of its Hollywoodization this Fiesta still has meaning. It is a symbol of the ongoing ideological struggle between Christianity and Islam. But there is no animosity. No priests or Imams or mullahs are to be seen – and after the parade the Moors and the Christians pull the turbans and helmets off their sweaty heads and drink a beer or three, and have  a few tapas in one of the many bars that line our Calle de Marques de Campos.

            These troops of Moors or Christians, and their associated bands, come from the villages in the hills that surround us. This is the highlight of their year. Throughout the year they meet weekly to design and make the costumes, to rehearse the band and the swaying slow march that owes a lot to the Saudi Arabian Bedouin sword dance.

            The women sew, the men march, and little children start at 4 on kettle drum or fife. Teenage girls play flute or clarinet or dance the Dance of the 7 veils (or these days of equality march as soldiers), and fathers play saxophone and grandfathers play trombone or tuba. This is what builds a community and anchors it to its history.

            In Sha’Allah (God Willing) this Fiesta will never die, and In Sha’Allah I will see it again before I die.

            If my love of human history – and its indomitable spirit of survival in spite of the actions of venal, corrupt and incompetent politicians – is showing, then I am glad. To find out more about how The West has screwed up its relations with the Middle East and Islam read my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”.

You can preview it by following my URL:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it as an E-book if you have a Kindle, or you can buy it in paperback from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

They offer free delivery worldwide.

False Economy

Posted on by
Reply

Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was brutal and oppressive, but provided you steered clear of politics, it was an efficient and functioning society. He was clever enough to provide the general populace with decent jobs, food and education.  And all the Second Gulf War did was to replace that efficient society with an inefficient society that is just as brutal and oppressive. And between the two Gulf Wars the sanctions did not work.

Why anybody with a shred of intelligence believes that economic sanctions against rogue nations achieve their ends (viz. Zimbabwe, Iraq, Iran etc.) is beyond me.

I guess the theory, like most theories, is sound. Make the populace suffer and they will rise against their rulers. Most of us want to live a quiet life and just have a roof over our heads, put food on the table, and educate our kids. We may grumble about prices and taxes – but politics is a bore (Showbusiness for ugly people) and we grin and bear it.  Only when the filthy rich and powerful start grinding our faces in an ever increasing workload and tax burden – and threaten the lives of our children – do we rise up.

But in practice the Iraq sanctions did not cause the populace to rise up in spite of the sufferings including an estimated 300,000 children dying for lack of medicines. And all the “oil for food” program did was create a huge black market in illicit oil vouchers that enriched and corrupted Russian, French and Indonesian  government officials, private American investors – and besmirched the reputation of Swiss independent inspection companies and the UN at the highest level including Kofi Annan and Benan Savan.

The effects of all of these shenanigans are illustrated in the story False Economy in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”

Poor Captain Bob, ruined by the false economics of so-called free market capitalism, still has enough dignity to gather the tattered shreds of his self-respect and blow the whistle on the oil for food program in spite of the consequences.

Preview my book by following my URL:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

And you can download it as an ebook if you have a Kindle for just US$2.99.

If you prefer a paperback in your hands you can buy from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

They offer free delivery worldwide.