El-ahrairah's Analysis of Current Middle Eastern Events

(Since ol' El is actually in Iraq right now I asked him to provide his opinions on the recent UAE controversy and the IMMINENT IRAQI CIVIL WAR!!. -- CH)

OK, since I have actually been to Dubai and the UAE, I guess that makes me the resident expert on things like this. Wow, I’m an expert. Anyway, the AF has blocked all the good blogs that I used to read, so I was getting most of my info from the MSM (Yahoo! News) and Mark Steyn/The Strategy Pages (a balanced viewpoint). I saw that the Congress and the MSM were having kittens over the UAE ports deal, so I really hadn’t formed an opinion until I was able to get a differing viewpoint. The Strategy Pages had a good post about this today which kind of puts the whole thing into perspective for me.

As was pointed out in the Strategy Page, the UAE is a long-standing ally of the US. Eventhough it is a muslim country, it has promotes religious tolerance. While I was there at Christmas, we saw numerous Sunni and Shite mosques and also Christian churches. As was explained to us, everyone is free to worship as they wish, as long as they do not try to convert others. This seems a very pragmatic approach to the whole religious question to me, which makes a lot of sense for a country that size.

The UAE has also helped the US with it’s war on terror. To denigate it’s contributions is a very large slap in the face. At times, you may or may not agree with it’s policies on current events, but you must always remember that other countries that the US has close ties with (Canada, Great Britain, Australia, etc.) do not always see eye-to-eye with the US.

The article also pointed out that nothing will change in regards to security at the ports. In fact, if you think about it, no terrorist in his right mind would try anything thru any of these ports now seeing the uproar that this generated. You can be sure that the Coast Guard and other security forces would be extra vigilant at these ports. I would be more worried about the ports that are not as big or as well protected.

So, as far as I’m concerned, this is yet another non-issue. I like how, eventhough everyone was screaming about how we could not allow this that the President said that the sale will stand as is. That seemed to tell the children in Congress to sit down and shut up and quit criticizing things that they do not know anything about.

As for the IMMINIENT IRAQI CIVIL WAR, as far as I know, although this was a Shite mosque, it was used by both Sunnis and Shites, so blowing it up didn’t make too much sense. I have seen pictures of the mosque and they really did do some major damage. Photos from the side do not show the whole damage that was done. You have to see photos from the top to see just how badly they blew it up. The bombs that they used must have been very, very large. How will this affect me? I’ll let you know when something starts to affect me. Right now, there is nothing happening different that yesterday or the day before or the day before that. That doesn’t mean that something won’t happen tomorrow, but since the Iraqi government called out the army and imposed a daytime curfew, there hasn’t been too much more going on. It’s kind of hard to imagine that the country is in the verge of ALL-OUT CIVIL WAR!!!!!!!

Oh well, maybe next month.