US Stops Coup in Qatar + Arabs Seeth Awaiting US Invaders (fwd)

["Clement M. Henry" <chenry@mail.la.utexas.edu>]

Hmm, this Qatar plot report does not seem to go away - could it have
actually happened and been covered up?

*****************************
Clement M. Henry
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712
tel 471-5121, fax 471-1061

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 18:02:24 -0400
From: Mid-East Realities <MERL@middleeast.org>
To: MER <MER@middleeast.org>
Subject: US Stops Coup in Qatar + Arabs Seeth Awaiting US Invaders

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     U.S. TROOPS IN PLAIN CLOTHES AND CIA OPERATIVES STOP QATAR COUP

                   "If America occupies an Arab country,
                    it would mean the whole Arab world on fire."

MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 25 October:
    Now the actual reality is that the U.S. occupies most of the countries in the Middle East, not directly but rather though "client regimes" and the CIA, not through brute force and military occupation but rather through more subtle and crafty means.
    Anyone who thinks the massive footprints of the American CIA and Pentagon aren't all over the exposing and putting down of the recent coup in Qatar doesn't know much about the secret history of American imperial 'diplomacy' nor about how most of the regimes in the Middle East have come to be and come to stay...with a few noteable exceptions.    MER first reported this coup attempt and put down earlier this week; now this brief report today from the Stratfor Intelligence organization.
    As for the somewhat buried on the inside pages story in today's New York Times about building anger and hatred in the Middle East, what's most interesting is that nearly everyone quoted is a co-opted on-the-take journalist, business person, or government-approved semi-official; all in fact representing the most pro-American Arabs one can find these days.  Not very deep-digging or serious reporting, and not very prominently put forth.  But the subject itself is a most important one which is quite likely to lead to more tragedies and more 9/11s in the years now ahead.
    Meanwhile, in related regional developments having to do with Saudi Arabia, the following:   The long-time independent-minded and thoughtfully outspoken Saudi Ambassador in London - Ghazi al-Gosaibi - has been sacked at American insistence.  None other than Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who met privately with President Bush during the summer at the Texas ranch, is thought to have coordinate al-Gosaibi's removal after he penned a poem supportive of the Palestinian Intifada.    His replacement?  The long-time Saudi intelligence chief known for his close contacts with the CIA (along with Bandar of course) and whose public rendition of Saudi-US 'cooperation', in the pages of the Washington Post last month, read like an on-his-knees confession of Saudi political sins to many in the Middle East.



                       QATAR COUP PLOT MAY THWART U.S. WAR PLANS

A foiled coup plot in Qatar raises questions about the ability of the government in Doha to survive, and with that, about U.S. access to the massive al-Udeid air base. If Qatar is forced to rethink and limit its cooperation with the U.S. military, then it could remove a key component of Washington's war plan for Iraq.

Stratfor sources, including Qatari diplomats and Russian military intelligence officials, confirm that authorities in Qatar foiled a coup plot this month after one of the conspirators betrayed the group for money.

Arabicnews.com on Oct. 16 cited rumors out of Cairo and the Gulf States that the Qatari government had arrested "scores" of high-ranking army officers on the evening of Oct. 12, after the plot was exposed. The report also claimed that U.S. troops were involved in the crackdown, establishing roadblocks and, in plain clothes, participating in the arrest of suspects.  -Stratfor Intelligence Brief, 25 October



         ANGER BUILDS AND SEETHES AS ARABS AWAIT AMERICAN INVADER
                                          By DANIEL J. WAKIN

NEW YORK TIMES, Oct 25 - CAIRO — After last Friday's Prayers at Al Azhar Mosque, anger against the United States spilled out into the courtyard in what was a relatively meager demonstration. Separate groups of men and women chanted in favor of Iraq, a boy on a man's shoulders carried a sign saying "I love 11 September" in English and the rally was over within an hour.

But on the edge of the crowd, Hassan Hossam reflected on a deeper fear in this part of the world that if the United States attacks Iraq, it would go on to impose long-term military control.

"This is totally rejected because Arabs are the only people who should rule their country," Mr. Hossam, a 32-year-old sales clerk, said. "President Bush is trying to take us backward, to many years ago," he said. "If America occupies an Arab country, it would mean the whole Arab world on fire."

Confronted by American plans for Iraq, people in the Middle East are facing more than just the prospect of war. They now must consider the possibility that the American government, backed by its military, may exert daily administrative control over a swath of Arab soil for a long period.

The idea summons up angry emotions in a region where sensitivities about the colonial past run deep. When asked about American plans for Iraq, people here evoke the Sykes-Picot agreement, a secret pact in 1916 between France and Britain to carve up Arab lands and Turkey from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. It led to British and French control of what is now Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, and the death of early Arab nationalist dreams; Britain had already occupied Egypt in 1882.

United States officials at one point said the Bush Administration was considering a plan for Iraq modeled after the occupation of Japan after World War II. An American military commander would assume control of the country for a year or more while the United States and allied forces would search for weapons of mass destruction and keep up oil production. But administration officials have also taken pains to say Iraqis would be treated as a liberated, not a conquered, people. President Bush has said the United States would not try to impose its culture or form of government on another nation.

Nevertheless, even the hint of American domination of Iraq touches a raw nerve here.

An American occupation of Iraq would feed into a sense of humiliation felt by many Arabs, said Rami Khouri, a political analyst and syndicated newspaper columnist who is Palestinian Jordanian.

"People are worried about the continued sense of degradation and humiliation that they are subjected to," he said in an interview from Amman, "just sitting around watching Americans and Israelis do whatever they want in the region."

Such sentiments give rise to talk that the United States and Israel are seeking to redraw the map of the Middle East, perhaps dividing up Saudi Arabia, or sending the Palestinians from the occupied territories to Jordan. "It's a hallucinatory perspective," Mr. Khouri said.

As a sign of such sensitivities, King Abdullah of Jordan felt it necessary in a television interview last week to deny claims that the ruling Hashemite family had plans to take control of Iraq if President Saddam Hussein were ousted.

News reports said rumors about Jordan's intentions took hold after an uncle of the king participated in an Iraqi opposition conference.

Commentators have also linked the Israeli Army's return to the West Bank as part of a grander United States strategy to redraw the map of the Middle East.

There is a widespread belief among Arabs that a United States occupation of Iraq would be aimed at securing Iraqi oil supplies, echoing the imperial powers hunger for raw resources in decades past. American military occupiers would effectively control the world's second largest proven oil reserves.

"All they want is the oil!" exclaimed Zeinab Said, a businesswoman, amid table talk of Lady Di and cellphones at a luncheon in Cairo last week, where the hostess tinkled a bell to summon her white-gloved servant.

Ms. Said later allowed that some good could come from Saddam Hussein's removal. "It can be for development and a certain kind of democracy. It's a double edged sword you see," she said. "I am always an optimist."

One political thinker, Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Al Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies, said United States military control of Iraq would indeed be seen as a recolonization. But he suggested that something along the lines of a "trusteeship," with strong participation by other countries, would be acceptable in the region.

An Iraqi opposition leader who is a member of the former royal family and who hopes to restore the monarchy, al-Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, said Sunday that American troops should come as liberators, not colonizers. "They will be in Iraq for cooperation and consultation, but they should leave quickly," Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying.

Many people worry about an increase in local violence as anger against the American presence grows.

Mohammed Salah, an expert on Egypt's Islamic movement for Al Hayat, a Saudi-owned Arabic-language newspaper in London, said anger over a United States presence in Iraq will only help groups seeking to attack American interests in the name of Islam.

"This atmosphere makes it very easy for Al Qaeda to operate," Mr. Salah said. "It makes the soil very fertile to launch attacks and to recruit people."



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