Big day in the Middle Beast

Hezbollah is now considering the ME to be the MB--Middle Beast.

BAHRAIN:
Another interesting development is the elections in Bahrain which reflects what's happening in Lebanon right now--Shi'ites demanding more power in a government that treats them as a minority when they are a majority. Bahrani Shi'ites comprise 60% of the population. The al-Khalifi monarchy is Sunni and the king appoints the upper-house of parliament, which has all the legislative control. Today elections are being held for the lower house, which is more symbolic than productive. The upper house is full of Sunni legislators and due to the demography, the lower house if filled with Shi'ites. Salah al-Bandar, a government advisor, wrote a report in September detailing the government's plans to taper with electronic voting, naturalize Sunni immigrants, pay Shi'ites to convert to Sunni-Islam and the government dished out $2.5 million dollars to implement its plans, in a country where rampant, especially among Shi'ites as Sunnis are favoured for government jobs and many businesses are Sunni-run.

Article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401292.html?nav=hcmodule
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/middleeast/25bahrain.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

IRAQ:
With over 200 killings by Sunni militias of Shi'ites in Sadr city, reatliatory strikes were bound to happen. Moutqtada Sadr, who controls the Mahdi army and is a prominent politician in P.M. Nouri Maliki's government, is warning Maliki not to meet Bush next week in talks to take place in Amman. Also, Sadr is threatening to pull out of the Iraqi government, which would cirpple a weak government. Bush is pressuring Maliki to crack down on Shi'ite militias, but if Maliki does so, the government will crack. Not only does Sadr have one of the biggest militas, but the Finance Minister, Bayan Jabr does too. Jabr--who up until May 2006 was interior minister and then was appointed as minister of finance--often employed Shi'ites in the force and uses them as death squads. This is why all these reports are surfacing of the Iraqi police force killing innocent Sunnis, who at first trusted the state employees, but have learnt to do otherwise. Harper's Magazine, in a report that detailed Jabr's role, even calls him the 'Minister of Civil War,' (article below).

Update on current violence and Sadr's demands:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112401317.html?referrer=email

Information from a Harper articel back in July about Shi'ite death squads and Jabr's bllod-stained, corrupt hands that were strengthened through Paul Bremer, the leader of the Coalition Authority Provisional Government.

http://www.harpers.org/the-minister-of-civil-war-399309.html

I find that newspapers, especially American, have been honest to their readers. Iraq is in a civil war, and many generals, reporters and analysts believe so as well. The Harper's article above proves that the internal conflict is a civil war, especially when the Washington Post reports:
"In a major shift, much of the recent violence has come from militias linked to parties in Iraq's government and from death squads with ties to government agencies. The trend is important because a common benchmark in the slide from strife to civil war is the government falling apart and factions within it fighting each other.
cowardice journalism."--http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/24/AR2006112400203.html?nav=hcmoduletmv

Yet Jabr's involvement with the death squads has gone way back. So why can't we call it like it is and say there's a civil war in Iraq? And like Lebanon in its 1975-90 civil war, there are regional powers fighting proxy wars on Iraqi land.

SAUDI/AMERICA:
American Vice President Dick Cheney visits Saudi Arabia today. He hopes to convince the monarchy to play a bigger role in quelling Iraqi violence through their ties to the Sunni population. This shows a significant change in U.S. foreign policy--instead of America forming alliances with European powers to fix the situation in the Middle East, it now is seeking the advice of the corrupt dictactorial Arab regimes it supports.

From Reuters:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-11-25T125639Z_01_N24372732_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-MIDEAST-USA.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C3-politicsNews-2