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To Really Combat Terror, End Support for Saudi Arabia : Information Clearing House - ICH But don’t expect any concerted action from the British government. Kuwait is “an important British ally in the region”, as the British government officially puts it . Tony Blair has become the must-have accessory of every self-respecting dictator, ranging from Kazakhstan to Egypt; Kuwait was Tony Blair Associates’ first client in a deal worth £27m. Britain has approved hundreds of arms licences to Kuwait since 2003, recently including military software and anti-riot shields. And then, of course, there is the dictatorship in Saudi Arabia. Much of the world was rightly repulsed when Isis beheaded the courageous journalist James Foley . Note, then, that Saudi Arabia has beheaded 22 people since 4 August . Among the “crimes” t

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia   : Information Clearing House - ICH Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins. One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism), and the use to which his radical, exclusionist puritanism was put by Ibn Saud. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader -- amongst many -- of continually sparring and raiding Bedouin tribes in the baking and desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.) The second strand to this perplexing duality, relates precisely to King Abd-al Aziz's subsequent shift towards statehood in t

Isis Isn’t the first Group to Use the Butcher’s Knife as an Instrument of Policy. Nor will it be the last  : Information Clearing House - ICH Not since the Nazis have we had culprits documenting their war crimes on such a scale By Robert Fisk Chopping off someone’s head or sawing it off or slicing it off is about gore. Blood. Pain. Grotesquerie. Death by the blade is about shame, suffering in an animal slaughterhouse. It’s the most repulsive theatre, understood by the Romans, the Tudors, the French revolutionaries, the austerest guardians of Wahhabism. Colour it bright red. To be hanged, drawn and quartered was about fear, terror – a word liberally used in Paris after 1789 – and obedience. It still is. The most judicious, accurate and gruesome description I have ever read of such e

Tens of thousands remain homeless in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada One week after a ceasefire halting an Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip , tens of thousands of Palestinians remain displaced, sheltered in United Nations schools and other facilities. On Sunday, 58,071 people still lived in 36 UN schools across the coastal enclave, according to Chris Gunness , spokesperson for  UNRWA , the UN agency for Palestine refugees.