Opulent Arabs Fuel Syrian Hell, Stiff Syrian Refugees

The cataclysm in Syria has created the worst refugee crisis the world has known since the end of the World War II.  This, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UNHCR, which has prime responsibility for coping with the 3.9 million men women and children who have fled the on-going horrors.

Ironically, the tragedy is unfolding almost at the doorstep of some of the most colossally wealthy people on the planet who preside over the oil-rich states of the Gulf.

In deed, with far less than 1% of their mammoth sovereign funds, almost any of the Gulf States could have provided, on their own tab, all of the $1.266 billion dollars that the UNHCR attempted—and failed--to raise last year for Syrian refugee relief.

In 2014, the UNHCR campaign ended up 37% short of its goal.

 One would think that those fabulously blessed royals and sheikhs and emirs would have been lining up to back the UNHCR’s attempts to mitigate the catastrophe that has overtaken millions of their mostly Sunni Arab brethren.

Especially since those same Gulf states also provided the arms and money that fueled so much of the horrific violence.

But one would be largely wrong.

As a donor, Kuwait was something of an exception. It gave $93 million to the UNHCR in 2014, the third largest contribution after the United States ($303 million) and the European Union ($146 million).

On the other hand, the Kuwaitis have also funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to some of the most extreme fighting groups in Syria, to the point that furious U.S. officials went public last year in an attempt to oblige them to turn off the spigot.

Yet, to its modest credit, Kuwait’s backing for the UNHCR’s Syrian relief program is greater than all the other Gulf states combined.

It’s not that the recent dramatic drop in oil prices has emptied those Arab coffers.

The Qataris, for instance, bankrolled by a huge sovereign wealth fund estimated at $250 billion, continue snapping up trophy hotels, football clubs, businesses, and huge hunks of prime real estate across the globe. Just in Paris, among many other assets, they own Le Printemps department store, the Peninsula Hotel, Raffles Royal Monceau, and 350,000 square feet along the Champs Elysees.

In London they’ve also bought up much of the skyline, from the towering Shard to Harrods, to No. 1 Hyde Park, to a massive swathe of Canary Wharf, not to mention 20% of the London Stock Exchange, and 10% of the company that owns British Air. They even helped keep Barclays Bank afloat during the height of the financial crisis.

The Qataris have also been among the most aggressive in doling out funds to radical groups fighting in Syria. They are thus also directly implicated in the on-going disaster.

How much did the Qataris, with the second highest annual per capita income in the world ($104,000), give to that campaign?

They gave $26 million-- far less than Germany ($42.3 million) or Japan ($34 million).

That was also far less than the $58 million fine that the Qatari ruling family were ordered to pay for an illegal scheme they used to avoid paying taxes on a prime 13 acre London site they bought from the British Ministry of Defense, for a cool $1.5 billion.

(Don’t even ask about the $120 million that Qatar's armed forces shelled out to purchase the Renaissance Hotel in Barcelona.)

On the other hand, the Qataris were far more open-handed to the UNHCR’s Syrian campaign than were other Gulf rulers.

The royals who run the United Arab Empire control a sovereign wealth fund of $773 billion that dwarfs Quatar’s. They also boast a stunning capital (Abu Dhabi) that Forbes labeled “So Blindingly Rich it’s almost Sickening.” Their donation last year to the UNHCR’s drive?

$4.8 million. Far less than Finland. ($7.84 million)

Then there’s the Saudis.

Their new ruler, King Salman, has been shoring up his own position and that of his sprawling family with a mammoth post coronation give away that so far totals more than $32 billion and has been lavished over most of his country’s population.

According to the New York Times, for the moment at least, there is little talk about human rights abuses or political reform. Saudis are spending. Some have treated themselves to new cellphones, handbags and trips abroad. They have paid off debts, given to charity and bought gold necklaces for their mothers. Some men have set aside money to marry a first, second or third wife. One was so pleased that he showered his infant son with crisp new bills. 

The Saudis have also been very generous to the new military regime in Egypt: Along with other Gulf States, they came up with $12 billion to back the government of General Abdul Fattah al-Sisi after it tossed out the Muslim Brotherhood, detested and feared by the Saudis. The Saudis have promised billions more. 

Under Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the cowboy head of Saudi Intelligence until he was removed in April, 2014, the Saudis also funneled huge amounts of arms and money to some of the most militant groups battling Syria's Assad—including the fighters from ISIS, who they cheered on in Iraq.

But for the UNHCR’s Syrian refugee program?

In 2014, the Saudis gave a total $2.9 million. Which wouldn’t buy you a decent one bedroom apartment in Belgravia these days.

 Even tiny Denmark gave more ($6.2 million).

That was last year. How is the UNHCR’s Syrian refugee campaign doing so far this year as the crisis becomes even more horrific?

 For 2015, the UNHCR is attempting to raise $1.342 billion.

 As of February 16, with TV broadcasting images of ragged, poorly sheltered Syrian children dying of exposure, the UNHCR has received pledges totalling a scant $74 million--only 6% of the amount needed.

The U.S. has yet to make its commitment.

The largest donors to step up to date are Canada ($10, 318,143) and the European Union ($51 million).

 And the Saudis, with their new munificent ruler? They’ve pledged $2.773,000, less than the amount they gave last year. The UAE has promised $2,247 million, also far less than last year.

 But more than Qatar…which has come up with $209,000.

 Not even the price of a decent crocodile handbag at Aspreys.

 (It would be interesting to see if these facts were picked up by Al Jazeera--also owned by Qatar.)

Charlie Hebdo: A trap for France

One of the editorial cartoons provoked by the Charlie Hebdo attack depicts an airplane flying towards two gigantic pencils, evoking the horrific 2001 attack on the twin towers. Indeed, many here view the attack on the French satirical weekly as France’s 9/11.

Which is exactly what the terrorists want.

What would truly be a disaster now would be for France (and Europe) to react to the Charlie Hebdo attack in the same blind, mindless fashion that America’s leaders reacted to 9/11. Nothing would more benefit al-Qaeda and its modern spin-offs.

The U.S. reaction plunged America into horrendously bloody and incredibly expensive conflicts on the other side of the globe with peoples and cultures it knows precious little about. More than twelve years later, America’s drones and Special Forces are scattered over the planet. Though Bin Laden was long ago killed, like a cancerous cell, al-Qaeda—and its even more brutal spin-offs—have spread across the Middle East and Africa. For every jihadi leader killed in Yemen, Somalia, Mali or Iraq, ten more seem to take their place.

Just as disastrous, America’s own vaunted traditions of freedom and liberty have also been victims to the overwrought reaction to 9/11.

Meanwhile, many of the U.S. reactions, like the widespread use of drones and the shame of Guantanamo—have been al-Qaeda’s best recruiting posters.

Indeed, one of the two brothers responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attack claimed back in 2005 when he was arrested for recruiting French jihadis to fight in Iraq against the U.S., that he’d been provoked to action by photos of American soldiers torturing Muslim prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

It’s thus naïve to think that the only motive for the attack on Charlie Hebdo was to exact vengeance for the publication of cartoons mocking  Mohammed. As Juan Cole has pointed out, by far the more important goal was to inflame the already volatile sentiments of race and religion in France—as well as the rest of Europe.

The strategy being to strengthen the far right movements of formerly shunned xenophobic leaders like Marine Lepen, who have long campaigned against immigration and warned darkly of the coming Muslim takeover of France and the rest of Europe.

At the same time, by provoking widespread repression and islamophobia, the terrorists hope to convince France’s Muslims that they no longer have a place in the nation. In fact, the great majority of those Muslims, though on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder and often discriminated against, have long shunned radical Islam. Despite everything, they have insisted on identifying themselves as French above all.

It would be a tragedy if that were to change.

Despite the impressive popular demonstrations of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and France’s democratic traditions, there have also been a rising number of attacks on Muslim targets, and calls from the right for action.

As I have previously written, many now feel that their country is at war with radical Islam. The danger is that, despite the warnings of editorialists and political leaders, in that “war” the distinctions will get blurred—the distinctions between a radical Islamists advocating terror, and Muslims as a whole.

The danger is that, over the coming days, French leaders, reacting to public fear and outrage, and desperate to compete with Marine Le Pen, will push for ever more Draconian measures against immigrants in general, Muslims in particular. Those newly radicalized Muslim youth would provide more recruits for jihad.

But what can the French authorities do?  The two brothers responsible for the Charlie Hebdo attacks were already well known to French police. Incredibly, both were also on the no-fly list in the United States. Similarly, Mohammed Merah, another young French Muslim of Algerian decent who shot down seven people near Toulouse in 2013, had also been on the French police’s watch list.

The problem is there are perhaps thousands of young Muslims in this country who have any kind of links with jihad. What’s to be done? Put them all in some kind of preventative detention? Deport them all? French citizens? For what crime?

For years, French leaders have talked about creating more jobs to help assimilate the millions of young unemployed Muslims into French society? Little has been done. France’s economy is a shambles. The unemployment is rate more than 10%, probably 30% in the poorer banlieues.

Meanwhile, France which has a huge budget deficit, now has more than 3500 troops combating radical Islamic groups in the wilds of the Sahel of North Africa, and other contingents in Djibouti, the Central African Republic, and Afghanistan.

Not to mention French fighter planes taking part in sorties against ISIS in Iraq. (That’s an ultimate irony or sorts: In 2003 one of the reasons George W.Bush gave for invading Iraq was that Saddam was linked to al-Qaeda. That turned out to be false. Eleven years later however, largely due to the political devastation wrought by the U.S. and its aftermath, ISIS a more violent group than al-Qaeda itself, controls a huge swathe of the country. ) 

Bottom line, France today is at a desperate turning point. Its leaders must somehow crack down on the undeniable threat of jihad from French Muslims, without at the same time alienating millions of its Muslim citizens who have nothing to do with radical Islam.

They must continue to emphasize the unity of the nation, resist the mounting calls for Draconian new laws, and the temptation to adopt the islamophobic slogans of the far right. They must also avoid getting mired even deeper into military adventures into distant lands.

If they fail, they play right into the hands of those who carried out the horrific attack on Charlie Hebdo this week.  

A much tougher and long–term challenge is for the Islamic world to carry out the kind of modernizing transformation that a few—but nearly not enough--of their leaders have been advocating for years. Who knows how long that could take?

Mr. Turner: Movies Butchering History

This is the scene: The housekeeper, in her fifties or sixties, is fully clothed in a long dark Victorian dress and bonnet. She has her back to the camera, perhaps dusting. In strides a heavy, hulk of a man: a coarse, fleshy face, his straw-like hair askew.

He scowls at the woman, grunts something undecipherable, rams himself against her, pinning her to the wall, lifting her skirts as he does so. He thrusts again. Mutely, she submits to the brutish attack. He grunts and thrusts again. Finally, satiated, he stalks away. Not a word has been uttered. She stares after him, without resentment, shock, or horror--her homely, lined features etched with resignation.  Obviously, this was not the first time Mr.Turner had had humped her; nor would it be the last.

Mr. Turner, directed by Mike Leigh, is by no means a coherent biography, but a gorgeous film that presents brief, often unconnected excerpts from the latter years of the great British painter William Turner. In a way, Leigh’s lush, gauzy, cinematographic techniques, might be compared to the brilliant, infused style that Turner himself developed to create his shimmering watercolor landscapes.

The problem is I don’t know how much of the film to trust.

One of the starkest scenes, the scene that must stick in the mind of the majority of the viewers, is the one described above—where Mr. Turner—the genius in rendering light long before the French impressionists ever came on the scene—brutally attacks and has his way with his housekeeper.

In some way, that shocking scene will forever change the way those who see the film will perceive the painter.

All well and good you may say. Indeed, it’s to the credit of Mike Leigh that he has given us the great Turner with all his warts and blemishes.

Except for the fact that the scene may never have happened. That’s according to Mike Leigh himself.

In a packed question and answer session following a screening of the film in at the Curzon Cinema in London, Leigh elaborated on the great amount of time and effort he and his staff had put into researching Turner’s life.

But when asked for the factual basis for Turner’s sexual attacks on his housekeeper, Leigh’s answer was along these lines: “Well, we knew that she had been living with him as his housekeeper for thirty or forty years, and.. it just felt right.” There was, Leigh admitted, no hard evidence, that Turner had regularly forced himself on the woman.

To Leigh, that seems to make no difference.

As much as I admire the talent of Mike Leigh, I can’t believe the arrogance of that reply.

The film is presented as “An exploration of the last quarter century of the great, if eccentric, British painter J.M.W. Turner’s life.” There is no indication anywhere that portions are made up, or based on what “felt right” to the director.

Yet, for millions of people who see the film, that is how they will remember Mr. Turner.

Another dramatic scene in the film may never have happened. At one point, Turner has himself lashed to the tall mast of a sailing ship in the midst of a ferocious gale, so he can directly experience a treacherous storm at sea. According to the Tate Britain—which houses a huge collection of Turner’s art—it’s most unlikely that Turner ever attempted that deed.

So, now I’m left with the question about the entire film---what was real and what was invented, because it felt right?

The people who turned out the film try to have it both ways: giving the very clear impression that it is based on fact—otherwise why would anyone go to see it?-- …while at the same time adding in riveting scenes that aren’t true. Are we to believe that they don’t have the box office as well as history in mind?

One might wonder how Mike Leigh would respond to some future biographer taking the same liberties with Leigh’s life story as Leigh did with Turner’s.

“Mr. Turner” is only the latest in a long list of films supposedly based “in fact” “in reality”, “on a real event, or “a true story.  Driven by a mix of arrogance and cynicism, the people who makes those films count on the ignorance of the audience to make their fortunes by butchering history. 

One such thriller, Argo, revealed how several Americans from the U.S. embassy in Tehran were whisked out of Iran at the height of the hostage crisis, by an incredibly brave and resourceful CIA agent. Except the real hero in the true story was not the CIA agent, but the Canadian ambassador to Iran, who sheltered those Americans and came up with the way to get them out.

But who’s going to pay good money to see a movie about a Canadian diplomat? The cliff-hanging conclusion of the film—without which the picture would never have worked---was also totally invented.

Much more egregious, as far as public policy goes, was Zero Dark Thirty, supposedly a totally factual account of how the U.S. tracked down and finally zapped Osama Bin Laden. One stark, scene showing a prisoner being water-boarded, made it clear that it was that torture that led to the biggest breakthrough in the chase: the CIA discovering the identity of the trusted courier used by Bin Laden, who ultimately led them to Bin Laden himself. According to several sources, including the latest Senate Committee report, torture had nothing to do with that breakthrough.

But try to make that point to Dick “torture works” Cheney or anyone of the hundreds of millions of people who have seen the film. 

If you queried the people responsible for that film, they’d probably shrug and say something like, “it just felt right”.

If Gaza's dead were America's dead

On the face of it, the casualty figures in Gaza may seem not that horrific to Americans—unless you transpose that same level of death and mayhem to the United States, 176 times the population of Gaza.

For instance, so far reportedly 571 Palestinians have been killed, including 154 children. Total wounded=3,550, of which 1125 are children.

If the United States were to be hit by a similar onslaught, the number of Americans killed--mostly in the past five days--would be 101,000, of which 27,000 would be  children. The number of Americans wounded would be 627,000, of which 198,000 are children.

Another comparison:

That number of dead would be almost twice the number that the United States lost in 10 years of fighting in Vietnam. (58,000).

It would almost equal the 116,000 American soldiers killed in World War I.

It would be more than one third of the Americans killed (291,000) fighting between 1941 and 1945 in World War II.

It would almost equal, however, the total number of American soldiers wounded. (670,000) in WWII.

And remember:

-- the great majority of those Palestinian deaths have occurred in just five days.

--a large proportion of those dead and injured were not soldiers.

--And the slaughter continues.