Saudi Arabia: Trump's plan to create an Arab NATO with a collection of dictators, tyrants and thugs is bound to fail - by Robert Fisk

"The Savior ? "

Counter Punch reports that Donald Trump set off on Friday to create the fantasy of an Arab Nato. There will be dictators aplenty to greet him in Riyadh, corrupt autocrats and thugs and torturers and head choppers. There will be at least one zombie president – the comatose, undead Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria who neither speaks nor, apparently, hears any more – and, of course, one totally insane president, Donald Trump. The aim, however, is simple: to prepare the Sunni Muslims of the Middle East for war against the Shia Muslims. With help from Israel, of course.

The incubator of terrorism

Even for those used to the insanity of Arab leadership – not to mention those Westerners who have still to grasp that the US President is himself completely off his rocker – the Arab-Muslim (Sunni) summit in Saudi Arabia is almost beyond comprehension. From Pakistan and Jordan and Turkey and Egypt and Morocco and 42 other minareted capitals, they are to come so that the effete and ambitious Saudis can lead their Islamic crusade against “terrorism” and Shiism. The fact that most of the Middle East’s “terrorism” – Isis and al-Qaeda, aka the Nusrah Front – have their fountainhead in the very nation to which Trump is traveling, must and will be ignored. Never before in Middle Eastern history has such a “kumidia alakhta” – quite literally “comedy of errors” in Arabic – been staged.

On top of all this, they have to listen to Trump’s ravings on peace and Islamic “extremism”, surely the most preposterous speech to be uttered by a US president since he is going to have to pretend that Iran is extremist – when it is Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi Isis clones who are destroying Islam’s reputation throughout the world. All this while he is fostering war.

For Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (henceforth MbS) wants to lead his Sunni tribes – plus Iraq if possible, which is why Shia Prime Minister Abadi has been invited from Baghdad – against the serpent of “terrorist” Shia Iran, the dark (Shia) “terrorist” Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad, the “terrorist” Shia Lebanese Hezbollah and the aggressive “terrorist” Shia Houthis of Yemen. As for the Gulf states’ own Shia minorities and other recalcitrants, well, off with their heads.

Much has been made (rightly) of MbS’s threat to ensure that the battle is “in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia”. But, typically, few bothered to listen to Iran’s ferocious reply to the Saudi threat. It came promptly from the Iranian defence minister, Hossein Dehghan. “We warn them [the Saudis] against doing anything ignorant,” he said, “but if they do something ignorant, we will leave nowhere untouched apart from Mecca and Medina.” In other words, it’s time to start building air raid shelters in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dhahran, Aramco headquarters and all those other locations dear to American hearts.

 Indeed, it’s difficult not to recall an almost identical Sunni hubris – almost four decades ago – to that of MbS today. The latter boasts of his country’s wealth and his intention to diversify, enrich and broaden its economic base. In 1980, Saddam was determined to do the same. He used Iraq’s oil wealth to cover the country in super-highways, modern technology, state-of-the-art healthcare and hospitals and modern communications. Then he kicked off his “lightning war” with Iran.

It impoverished his oil-rich nation, humiliated him in the eyes of his fellow Arabs – who had to cough up the cash for his disastrous eight-year adventure – led to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, sanctions and the ultimate Anglo-US invasion of 2003 and, for Saddam, the hangman’s noose.

Yet this leaves out the Syrian dimension. Sharmine Narwani, a former senior associate of St Antony’s College – and an antidote for all those sickened by the mountebank think-tank “experts” of Washington – pointed out this week that US support for Kurdish forces fighting under the dishonest label of “Syrian Democratic Forces” are, by advancing on Raqqa, helping to cut Syria off from Iraq. And that Kurdish forces are now reported as “retaking” Christian or Muslim Arab towns in the Nineveh province of Iraq, which were never Kurdish in the first place.

Kurds now regard Qamishleh, and Hassakeh province in Syria as part of “Kurdistan”, although they represent a minority in many of these areas. Thus US support for these Kurdish groups – to the fury of Sultan Erdogan and the few Turkish generals still loyal to him – is helping to both divide Syria and divide Iraq.

This cannot and will not last. Not just because the Kurds are born to be betrayed – and will be betrayed by the Americans even if the present maniac-in-charge is impeached, just as they were betrayed to Saddam in the days of Kissinger – but because Turkey’s importance (with or without its own demented leader) will always outweigh Kurdish claims to statehood. Both are Sunnis, and therefore “safe” allies until one of them – inevitably the Kurds – must be abandoned.

Meanwhile, you can forget justice, civil rights, sickness and death. Cholera has quite a grip on Yemen now, courtesy of the criminal bombing attacks of the Saudis – ably assisted by their American allies long before Trump took over – and scarcely any of the Muslim leaders whom Trump meets in Riyadh do not have torturers at work back home to ensure that some of their citizens wish they had never been born. It will be a relief for the fruitcake president to leave Israel for the Vatican, albeit given only a brief visitation to – and short shrift by what the Catholics believe – is a real peacemaker.

That only leaves one nation out of the loop of this glorious charivari: Russia. But be sure Vladimir Putin comprehends all too well what is going on in Riyadh. He will watch the Arab Nato fall apart. His foreign minister Lavrov understands Syria and Iran better than the feckless Tillerson. And his security officers are deep inside Syria. Besides, if he needs any more intelligence information, he has only to ask Trump.

The BBC reports that In stark contrast to the upbeat statements of Saudi officials concerning US President Donald Trump's visit to the kingdom on 20 May, many Arab Twitter users have taken a more sceptical view of the trip.

At one point on Saturday, though, the term "Trump's daughter" in Arabic was the top-trending topic worldwide on Twitter.

Many have taken to satire, posting images referencing negative comments by Mr Trump about Islam and Muslims. Their reaction comes ahead of his much-anticipated speech at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh on Sunday.

EU-Digest

The Netherlands: The King of the Netherlands Reveals He Has Been Living a Secret Life for 20 Years - by Jamie Bland

King Willem Alexander could be flying your plane

King Willem-Alexander—aka King of the Netherlands—recently revealed his secret life as a KLM Airlines co-pilot to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf.

"I find flying simply fantastic," he told the newspaper. "You can't take your problems with you off the ground.

You can completely switch off for a while and focus on something else. That, for me, is the most relaxing part of flying."

For the past 21 years the King has secretly taken flight on the commercial planes and while very few have recognized him, he's had no trouble strolling through the airport in his pilot uniform going mostly unnoticed. In fact, unless passengers recognized the royal's voice via telecom, Willem-Alexander managed to keep his hobby and second profession completely under wraps...until now.

 

"The advantage is that I can always say I am speaking on behalf of the captain and crew to welcome them on board, so I don't have to say my name," Willem-Alexander further explained to the paper. "But then, most people don't listen anyway."

So what prompted the sudden reveal? Willem-Alexander is heading to training to fly Boeing 737s—the model of plane that is replacing the current aircrafts used by the airline company.

 

While it has been awhile since the king has been taking orders, he is excited to fly the new planes.

"It also seemed nice to fly to other destinations one day, with more passengers and bigger distances. That was the real motive for training on the 737," said Willem-Alexander.

Even with the new changes and public exposure, the king plans to keep up his hobby of co-piloting twice a month.

EU-Digest

EU Military Developments: New HQ to take charge of EU military missions - by Andrew Rettman

EU Combined Military Forces Get HQ In Brussels

EU states have cleared the way for a new HQ to take charge of three military missions in a “couple of days”, as well as broader plans for joint defense.

The HQ will, in the words of 28 defence ministers adopted on Thursday (18 May), “assume responsibilities at the strategic level for the operational planning and conduct of the EU’s non-executive military missions” including “the three EU Training Missions deployed in Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia”.

Missions of a “non-executive” nature, in EU jargon, do not involve combat and cannot take decisions independently of their host nations.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said “the political decision is finalised” and that it would take “a couple of days” to have the new HQ “officially in place”.

An EU source said it was a matter of circulating and rubber-stamping the legal documents that would underpin the new entity.

They said the UK had, as of Monday, still objected to describing it in language that made it sound as though it was a military command structure or the start of a future EU army, but that compromise wording, which will be published shortly, had now been agreed.

The HQ will be located in a building that already houses Mogherini's military staff in Brussels, and will take over command tasks previously handled out separate locations in member states.

The EU defence ministers decided additionally on Thursday that deployment of EU “battlegroups” in the field would in future be paid for out of the EU budget and not by participating member states.

Read more: New HQ to take charge of EU military missions

Violence and religion: 'Violence more common' in Bible than Quran, text analysis reveals in "misleading study"- by Samuel Osborne

An analysis into whether the Quran is more violent than the Bible found killing and destruction occur more frequently in the Christian texts than the Islamic.

Investigating whether the Quran really is more violent than its Judeo-Christian counterparts, software engineer Tom Anderson processed the text of the Holy books to find which contained the most violence.

It took just two minutes for his software to read and analyse the three books.

 In a blog post, Mr Anderson explains: "The project was inspired by the ongoing public debate around whether or not terrorism connected with Islamic fundamentalism reflects something inherently and distinctly violent about Islam compared to other major religions."

Using text analytics software he had developed, named Odin Text, he analysed both the New International Version of both the Old and New Testaments as well as an English-language version of the Quran from 1957.

By categorizing words into eight emotions - Joy, Anticipation, Anger, Disgust, Sadness, Surprise, Fear/Anxiety and Trust - the analysis found the Bible scored higher for anger and much lower for trust than the Quran.

Further analysis found the Old Testament was more violent than the New Testament, and more than twice as violent as the Quran.

However, he adds: "First, I want to make very clear that we have not set out to prove or disprove that Islam is more violent than other religions.

"Moreover, we realize that the Old and New Testaments and the Quran are neither the only literature in Islam, Christianity and Judaism, nor do they constitute the sum of these religions’ teachings and protocols.

"I must also reemphasize that this analysis is superficial and the findings are by no means intended to be conclusive. Ours is a 30,000-ft, cursory view of three texts: the Quran and the Old and New  testament.

Note EU-Digest: the original headline of this article in the Independent is misleading and so is the study, specifically when it comes to the focus on violence, 

Case in point: has the bible ever inspired Christians to strap explosives to teenagers and have them walk into crowded market places and detonate themselves, causing their own death, and many other casualties, or inspired Christians to drive trucks or other vehicles into public gatherings and kill as many people as possible shouting "Jesus is great" ? 

On the other hand, one must also admit that in times of war, Christian nations military forces have killed millions of innocent civilians, afterwards calling the people killed by their indiscriminate bombings, "collateral damage".    

Maybe the conclusion is that evil things happen when people start interpreting religious scripture to fit their needsm and not the other way around?

Read more: 'Violence more common' in Bible than Quran, text analysis reveals | The Independent

The Netherlands: Dutch PM refuses 2nd try at governing with anti-Islam nationalist PVV Geert Wilders

Dutch PM Mark Rutte

VVD leader Mark Rutte is carefully considering the next steps in the Dutch cabinet formation now that negotiations between his party, the CDA, D66 and GroenLinks collapsed. He is clear on one thing however - the VVD still won't rule with anti-Islam nationalist Geert Wilders and his PVV, he said to RTL Nieuws.

Wilders posted on Twitter that the PVV is available for a coalition almost immediately after mediator Edith Schippers announced that the negotiations had collapsed. To cameras the leaders of the VVD, CDA, D66 and GroenLinks all said that they are disappointed by the mutual agreement to end the talks.

But sources told NRC that the talks collapsed because GroenLinks leader Jesse Klaver would not agree with a proposal to make an asylum deal with north African countries that is similar to the deal between Turkey and the EU - money for shelter in the region, in return for the borders being closed to asylum seekers who want to come to Europe.

Rutte would not say anything about his preference for a coalition. "We're going to take it step by step", he said to the broadcaster, adding that he wants to "first calmly discuss it with the faction."

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, will debate on how to proceed regarding the government formation from 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Kamer president Khadija Arib announced after meeting with all the party leaders on Tuesday. Schippers is expected to send her report on the failed negotiations to the Kamer later this afternoon.

The leaders of the parties not involved in the formation talks are demanding clarity on what happened as soon as possible, according to the Volkskrant. "Was this a serious attempt or a stage play?" PvdA leader Lodewijk Asscher wants to know. He added that the PvdA is still not available for the next formation attempt.

"I'm surprised that it took six weeks to find out that you can't agree with GroenLinks on migration", PVV leader Geert Wilders said.

ChristenUnie, considered by many as the most likely party to replace GroenLinks in the formation talks, is wonderig how definite this negotiation collapse is. Leader Gert-Jan Segers is willing to discuss joining a VVD, CDA, D66 coalition, but only if GroenLinks is definitely off the table.

This is the first time the Kamer has to deal with failed formation negotiations since the King was removed from the formation picture in 2012. Because new negotiations now have to start, a new mediator may be appointed. As the VVD is the biggest party, Rutte will nominate a mediator.

According to the Volkskrant, it is likely that Edith Schippers will again be nominated as she already knows all the parties wishes and demands.

Read more: Dutch PM refuses 2nd try at governing with anti-Islam nationalist PVV | NL Times

Saudi Arabia: Saudi King Hopeful Over Sunday's Summit With Trump - really ?

High level diplomacy or just plain hypocracy?

Saudi King Salman on Monday expressed hope a "historic" summit to be held Sunday between Arab and Muslim nations and US President Donald Trump will enhance ties and promote tolerance.

The summit will be one of three forums held during a visit by Trump, who is making Saudi Arabia his first overseas stop since assuming office in January.

Trump has frequently been accused of fueling Islamophobia but aides described his decision to visit Saudi Arabia as an effort to reset relations with the Muslim world.

Along with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), at least 18 other Muslim nations have been invited to the summit, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, Niger and Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.

Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran is not invited.

Salman told a cabinet meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah that the meeting "comes in light of the challenges and sensitive situations that the world is going through".

According to the official Saudi Press Agency, "he expressed his hope that this historic summit will establish a new partnership in the face of extremism and terrorism and spreading the values of tolerance and coexistence" while enhancing security.

Note EU-Digest: Amazing that Donald Trump has chosen Saudi Arabia for his first foreign visit. We can only suspect that the image of being warmly greeted by such a strong representation of Sunni Muslim kings, emirs and presidents is a potential bonanza for a U.S. leader beleaguered by domestic troubles.  

The fact that Saudi Arabia has been the cradle of "terrorist awakening",  from where Saudi born terrorists like Ben Laden became the main instigators of the 9/11 NY World Trade Center attack, and many other evil deed's does not  seem to bother Donald Trump, or, unfortunately as it did not really bother any other US President before him, including President Obama.

As one foreign EU diplomat stationed in Ankara  noted. "Donald Trump, or any US President for that matter, will sell their soul to the devil, in order to complete a series of arms deals for the US weapons industry, and with these recent sales to Saudi Arabia totaling more than $100bn.- they will also gladly even dance with the devil. 

This Saudi visit by Trump has only 10% to do with diplomacy and 90% for showing US gratitude to the Saudi's. for their continued support of the US weapons industry. It can also be classified as "brown nosing" the Saudi's. 

And this brown nosing the Saudi and keeping a blind eye about their lack of respect for human rights is certainly not only limited to the US, but also indulged in by many other Nations around the world, including quite a few in the EU.

It is high time this hypocracy stops, because it has become so flagrant that no-one takes this nonsense serious anymore.

Read more: Saudi King Hopeful Over Sunday's Summit With Donald Trump

Brexit: The UK and the EU are on collision course for a major clash over the structure of Brexit negotiations, warns David Davis-by T.N.Dunn

The fantasy is over Britain

The British Brexit Secretary says the Government and Brussels are set for an almighty row over the details of a deal on citizens' rights

We will reject any attempt by the EU to keep euro judges in charge of the rights of its citizens living in the UK after Brexit, David Davis has declared.

The remaining 27 leaders have made the continuation of the European Court of Justice’s remit a term for any deal with Britain.

But the Brexit Secretary ruled that out, vowing: “Well we’ll have an argument about that”.

Mr Davis told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “The simple truth is we’re leaving".

“We are going to be outside the reach of the European court, we are going to be outside the reach of all of the law making capabilities”.

Offering an olive branch, the Cabinet minister leading the intense talks instead said the UK would “freeze” EU citizens’ entitlements as they are today.

Workers from other European countries would keep getting benefits and pensions from Britain if they’re resident, as well as free healthcare.

But they would lose ‘citizenship’ rights, such as being able to vote in general elections.

Note EU-Digest: Looks like Britain wants "their cake and eat it also". That is not the way "the cookie crumbles",  Mr. David Davies.

Read more: The UK and the EU are on collision course for a major clash over the structure of Brexit negotiations, warns David