Qatar is a Wahhabi state?

Angry Arab: "People forget that despite years of a bitter Saudi-Qatari feud, Qatar is the only other Wahhabi state in the world."

I did not know this. Qatar is very different from the KSA.

Al Jazeera English covers arrest of Qatari blogger

More kudos to Al Jazeera English for covering the arrest of a blogger in Qatar, where Al Jazeera headquarters (and CENTCOM) are.

AJE: "Amnesty International says a blogger and human rights activist has been detained incommunicado in Qatar and is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.

The UK-based human rights group said Sultan al-Khalaifi was arrested on March 2 by around eight individuals in plain clothes, believed to be members of the security forces.

According to information received by Amnesty International, al-Khalaifi had told his wife earlier that day that state security had contacted him, asking him to report to them, but that he did not know why.

The reasons for his detentions and his whereabouts are unknown, Amnesty said in a statement on Friday, adding that it is believed he is being held in the custody of state security."

AJE also covered this: "Saudi Arabia bans protest rallies"

US allies funded insurgency in Iraq

Nibras Kazimi: "America’s allies are directly implicated, as financiers, ideologues, orchestrators and managers, in the deaths of American soldiers. I hope this is not glossed over by those now privy to this information. Without this money, it seems to me, the insurgency would have been crippled early on, even with Sunni resentment at fever-pitch. The money made the nightmare of the last eight years possible. It was also eye-opening for me to realize that squabbles over money, as it began to peter out, had a very big deal to do why the insurgency could never coalesce into a whole."

Egypt, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, perhaps?

Ayad Jamal Aldin calls on Middle East to help Haiti

"I am calling on all the people of Iraq and the whole Middle-East to unite and do what they can to support the ongoing rescue efforts and the relief and rebuilding that follows."

- Ahrar Party Leader Ayad Jamal Aldin

It made me wonder how much in donations are coming from Kuwait and Qatar, both in the top five in income per capita according to the CIA World Factbook. I wonder if the Saudi royal family is helping in the worldwide effort.

PS: From Alms in Wiki: "In Islam, zakat, or the giving of alms, is the Third of the five pillars of Islam. Various rules attach to the practice, but in general terms, it is obligatory to give away 2.5% of ones savings and business revenue, as well as 5-10% of ones harvest, to the poor. The recipients include the destitute, the working poor, those who are unable to pay off their own debts, stranded travelers, and others who need assistance, with the general principle of zakaah always being that the rich should pay it to the poor. One of the most important principles of Islam is that all things belong to God, and that wealth is therefore held by human beings in trust."

Stop lying, Rudy Giuliani

I hate liars. I have noticed similarities between some conservative American politicians and conservative Arab Muslim politicians. Giuliani is the same man who did business with Qatar. Remember when Sarah Palin talked about "real" Americans? She reminded me of conservative Iraqis who labeled many Iraqis, including myself, as not "real" Iraqis. They all claim to be nationalists and most patriotic to their countries.

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Jordan's secret role in America's CIA

'Hours after last week's deadly attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan, a revision was made in official accounts of the number of intelligence operatives killed in the suicide bombing. Instead of eight deaths, as initially reported, the CIA acknowledged only seven.

The eighth victim resurfaced over the weekend when his flag-draped coffin arrived in his native country, Jordan. The man, a captain in the Jordanian intelligence service, was given full military honors at a ceremony that referred only to his "humanitarian work" in war-torn Afghanistan.

...Yet, despite Jordan's critical role, officials from both countries have insisted that its participation remain virtually invisible, in part to avoid damaging Amman's standing among other Muslim nations in the region, former intelligence officials said."

They seek to avoid damaging Amman's standing among other Muslim nations in the region? Are you serious?? Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia, the country that hosted more than half a million American (crusaders!) soldiers in 1991? Or would the Muslim country of Qatar, which hosts the US CENTCOM, look down on Jordan for their work with Americans? Perhaps the pious Muslims of the UAE, where there are more than 90 Starbucks, would stop going to Amman for vacation if they hear such blasphemous news!

Thanks Tony for posting the article.

ExxonMobile Helps Qatar Prosper

Why do so many Arabs and leftists have no problem with Qatar, host to CENTCOM, prospering from its business with ExxonMobil, while they bitch and moan about Iraq's recently signed short-term service contract with ExxonMobile and other oil giants?

"In November 2005, ExxonMobil started production at the Al Khaleej block in the North Field at a rate of 750 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d). In July 2006, the company announced a $3-billion plan to expand this output to 1.6 Bcf/d by 2009, which will be used to fuel power plants and industrial customers in Ras Laffan, the RasGas LNG project, and as feedstock at the Oryx Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) Project. ExxonMobil is the largest foreign investor in development projects at Qatar’s North Field. Aside from Al Khaleej, the company is also involved in increasing natural gas supplies for the RasGas and Qatargas LNG projects, each of which will rely on significant increases in output from the North Field over the next several years (see the LNG Section below for additional details)."

The Permanent Infidel Presence in Persian Gulf

Over the weekend my father and I were talking about the incredible stupidity and hypocrisy of Al Qaeda and other "resistance" groups who murder foreigners in Iraq and Iraqis who work with foreigners. I told him that AQI murders Iraqis who work with Americans, but apparently it's OK for Al Qaeda that Saudis do big business with Americans and the US CENTCOM is in Doha, Qatar. I mean we don't hear about suicide bombings in Riyadh or Doha. My father agreed and told me that it's apparently OK with Al Qaeda that France, the country that banned the hijab, has signed a deal with Abu Dhabi for a permanent French naval base there. I missed this months-old announcement and thought I should add it to the list of examples of Arab hypocrisy.

Giuliani's ties to Qatar

I don't know why, but Rudy Giuliani has always given me the creeps. He has always reminded us of his leadership skills on 9/11 and claims that he knows how to defeat the terrorists. So, Mr. Giuliani, is doing business with them the best way to defeat them?? Reminder: Al Jazeera (terrorist mouthpiece) is headquartered in Qatar. No way I will vote for this hypocrite. John McCain is a much better choice.

Giuliani's terrorist ties
Forget Rudy's trysts. The real scandal crying out for investigation is his firm's business with Qatar, a haven for al-Qaida.

By Joe Conason

Nov. 30, 2007 | The familiar herd instinct of the mainstream media is powerful, unswerving and often plain wrong. While editors and producers are supposed to make judgments based on a combination of news value and public interest, their choices often seem to be based on nothing more elevated than an allergy to complexity or an affinity for smut. And occasionally, as in the case of Rudolph Giuliani during this past week, the sudden appearance of not one but two juicy investigations overwhelms the system's capacity to absorb and regurgitate.

But when the nation's news executives decided which of two highly embarrassing Giuliani stories to feature, nearly all of them made the wrong choice. While they lavished enormous attention upon a Politico story dealing with adultery and bureaucracy, they should be devoting at least as much time to yet another in the long series of Wayne Barrett scoops in the Village Voice, because this one involves business and terrorism.

If broadcast minutes is an accurate measure, the sexier tale was Ben Smith's investigative feature in the Politico, which used city documents released under New York's Freedom of Information Law to trace the former mayor's early trysts from 1999 to 2001 with his then mistress and current wife, Judith Nathan Giuliani. As usual, the sex angle had to be approached via worthier concerns, such as whether the time of the police officers who guarded Giuliani during his trips to see Nathan on Long Island was billed to the correct city agency.

As Smith's creative reporting revealed, someone evidently tried to conceal the substantial costs of the mayor's romantic excursions by attributing them to several unlikely budget lines -- including the Loft Board, which regulates the rents of residential loft apartments, and the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, which oversees the provision of legal counsel to indigent defendants.

Amusing as it was to learn that somehow those obscure agencies were billed more than $400,000 for the mayor's covert visits to Southampton -- and that the bizarre billings had later been referred to the city Department of Investigation for a quiet burial -- this story tells us little we did not already know about Giuliani. He denies knowing anything about the billing procedures for his trips, and there is no proof that he did. And he was entitled to police protection wherever he went, even to his girlfriend's condo.

Nevertheless, CNN chose to include a question about the Long Island trips in the Republican YouTube debate.

Meanwhile, Barrett's latest article -- probing the lucrative relationship between Giuliani's security firm and the emirate of Qatar -- prompts questions that "America's Mayor" might have found truly hard to answer. With Qatar's troubling record as both an American ally and a longtime haven for al-Qaida terrorists, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or "KSM," the little Gulf sheikdom is a curious client indeed for Giuliani Security and Safety, a division of Giuliani Partners.

If Giuliani was unaware of the terrorism issues surrounding Qatar before he signed his initial contract with the emirate in 2005, then he must not be quite the expert he claims to be. And if he knew of those issues but signed up anyway, that raises other questions.

Certainly he should be asked to explain his connections with the emirate and especially with Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalid al-Thani, who has long been suspected of harboring KSM and facilitating the travel of al-Qaida operatives to and from Qatar. Whatever reasons the United States may have for maintaining diplomatic and military ties with Qatar, the contradictions in doing business with that nation for a hard-liner like Giuliani should be explored.

Reluctant as the Republican front-runner apparently is to sit down for an interview with Barrett, perhaps other journalists should inquire about those Qatar deals (and for that matter, all of the other business relationships that he has so far declined to disclose). Here are a few pertinent questions to encourage them:

1. Are your company's security contracts with Qatar negotiated and administered through the Qatar Ministry of the Interior, as a government spokesman confirmed to the Village Voice?

2. Are you aware that the interior minister appointed in 2001 and reappointed this year by the emir of Qatar is Abdullah al-Thani, the former minister of Islamic affairs and a strict Wahhabi Muslim who has been identified in U.S. press and government reports as a protector of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

3. Are you aware that Abdullah al-Thani, a strict Wahhabi Muslim, reportedly hosted Osama bin Laden on two visits to his Qatari farm?

4. Were you aware of that allegation against Abdullah al-Thani when you agreed to work for the Qatar government in 2005?

5. Are you aware that Abdullah al-Thani is a defendant in federal civil lawsuits brought by survivor families against officials deemed directly or indirectly culpable for the 9/11 attacks?

6. Are you aware that former CIA officer Robert Baer has accused Abdullah al-Thani of helping KSM escape from Qatar just before he was to be arrested in 1996 by the FBI?

7. Are you aware that Baer's account, based on the testimony of a former Qatari official, implicates the emir in KSM's escape as well?

8. Did you ever discuss Abdullah al-Thani's alleged terrorist ties with your friend Louis Freeh, the former FBI director, or with the two former FBI counterterrorism agents who work for Giuliani Security?

9. Were you aware when you agreed to provide security services to the emirate in 2005 that the U.S. State Department's annual report on worldwide terrorism released several months earlier had criticized Qatar for coddling Islamist extremists and permitting "members of transnational terrorist groups" to reside there?

10. Are you aware that the government of Qatar has hosted the leadership of Hamas and provides millions of dollars monthly to the Hamas authorities in Gaza -- and that the emir applauded Hezbollah's "victory" over Israel during last summer's war in Lebanon?

It is long past time for Giuliani to begin to answer those questions and many more about Giuliani Partners and its subsidiaries as well as his law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani. We already know more than we need to know about Judi Nathan.

Shimon Peres in Qatar

Three photos showing Shimon Peres with officials in Qatar. Imagine if these photos were taken in Iraq - imagine what the reactions of the Arabs and in particular Sheikh Yousif Al-Qaradhawi would be! I wonder if Al Jazeera covered this.