Surfing the Casbah LLC

By this time (year 3 of Blogging the Casbah) I think everyone who cares knows that my name is Jesse Aizenstat and I surfed the Middle East--and am now about to launch an iPad book on the matter.

So, I have no issue with sharing a very personal and important moment that happened the other day: I opened an LLC and incorporated Surfing the Casbah LLC into a business. (Now I get junk mail from credit card companies, cable providers, and everyone else. Ahhh!)

Other than that, I'm very excited to now be a business... and look forward to our launch of Surfing the Middle East on the iPad!

The Smart Gun

I just think this is crazy, cool and scary:

A new gun the US military hopes will help take on the Taliban has been unveiled.

Called the XM-25 it has been described by the US Army as a 'game changer'. It uses a laser guidance system and specially developed 25mm high explosive rounds which can be programmed to detonate over a target.

Richard Audette helped develop it for the US Army and says it's a big leap forward because it's the first small arms weapon to use smart technology.

Of course Saudi wants Iran bombed!

Ahhhhh Jesus! I'm trying to stay away from this daily blogging and spouting back and forth with other bloggers because it is a waste of time and it takes me away from my iPad book.

But....... Old Jeffery Goldberg got me thinking this morning:

Raymond Bonner, writing for The Atlantic.com, on the sea-change that might be coming, thanks to the Wikileaks revelations:

Sure, we knew that Middle East governments were concerned about Iran. But we didn't know to what degree. The cumulative impact of these cables is profound.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the largest, wealthiest, and among the most conservative Middle East nations, made "frequent exhortations to the US to attack Iran and so put an end to its nuclear weapons program," the American embassy in Riyadh reported in April 2008. "He told you to cut off the head of the snake," one of the King's aides reminded the American ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus when they were in the kingdom for a two day visit.

And so THAT takes me to the entire point of this Wikileaks thing, how the Middle East works, and everything in between: Don't be shocked! This is the Middle East. There is a very clear reason why Saudi's King Abdullah wanted/wants the US to take out the Iranian regime:

1. They pose a threat to his Kingdom.
2. They mess with his proxies in Iraq, Lebanon, a few of the Gulf States, even the Shia population in his own Kingdom.
3. Iran makes him look bad in the eyes of many Muslims; like a Western puppet.
4. Oil production disagreements ... (and honestly, after taking out Saddam in Iraq, from the King's perspective, you've already committed if you're the US, so why not just take out Iran?)

So it's crazy that everyone in the blogosphere is freaking out about this.

Yes, the Saudi's could be called "neo cons" but the truth of the matter is that it is in there best interest to see the Islamic Republic of Iran fall and some Shah-like, Western-masturbating regime take hold ... as the Kingdom of Saud has done - (and become).


Update: Another reason to laugh: Apparently, according to Israel's Ynet news, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has a "visceral hatred" for Iran. The gossip has never been so good.

Gaddafi and his tent

Wikileaks. Yes, everyone is freaking out over Wikileaks new leak. And, they seem to have leaked quite a bit. Well... at least enough for every major news agency in the world to have at least two stories on their front page. So why not chime in?

Here is my favorite leak:

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was reportedly extremely upset over not being allowed to set up his tent in Manhattan for the United Nations session in 2009. According to the Wikileaks documents, he was reportedly so distraught that he turned his back on a promise to return enriched uranium to Russia.

Also, Jeffery Goldberg hits it out of the park with this post.