Cold War Again ?

I was watching the news yesterday, getting all excited about a major shift in international affairs.

three significant developments occurred over the past few days

1- Poland and the U.S sign a military deal where the U.S is to place anti-missile shields (missiles) supposedly to protect Poland from any threat of long/medium range missiles, obviously this is directed at deterring Russia, or balancing it off but Condalica Rice (minister of International Relations) referred to it as protecting Poland from Iran( obviously Iran and Poland dont have any pressing issues of dispute).

2- More tensions arise between NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and Russia, NATO freezes all normal relations with Russia. Yup that’s more beef with Russia.

3- “President” of Syria Bashar al Asad goes to Moscow ! Denouncing the U.S’s back up to Georgia and its oppression to the world, he paves the way for military deals and co-operation including buying advanced aircraft fighters and allowing Russian Warships in Syrian ports in return of Russia dropping the money it is owed by Syria..


All of this was triggered over the situation in Georgia, where Russia felt its interest in the Caucuses was being undermined so it had to make the move to keep its strategic dominance over the area. Georgia of course is a U.S Ally now.

The U.S still feels or least treats Russia as if it was in the 90s when the U.S.S.R collapsed and Russia has become significantly weak stripping away its global power. Obviously Russia is way stronger now, (along with China and also India!).

The U.S since 9-11 has been occupied with this “War on Terror” a complete bogus term that doesn’t mean anything and has launched a war that among many things show bigotry and hatred towards Arabs and Muslims rather than being based on sound strategic judgment, it wasn’t so long till the U.S made use of 9 11 and launched a war on Iraq using its pretexts as a support. The U.S was serving Israeli interests in the Middle East over its own, ( as Mershimer and Waltz have pointed out before)

In the mean time Russia, China and India have significantly improved their economies, Of course Russia and then China are much more immanent threats to U.S Global dominance, I wrote a post before (Heading Towards a Mulit Polar World) like everyone else predicating the global situation, I never expected thought it would be that soon and blatant .

Its too early to decide how this will affect Muslim Countries with Military dictatorships suffocating their people, but I guess it gives more room for political opposition to act under the blind spot of America being concerned with more alerting issues.

Setting the New Pace

ahhh Yup Need to sit with myself see how bodybuilding is going, else I leave it unplanned and dont make the most of my years ahead inshaAllah.

My wrist is not 100% ok, but i can manage around it,, I think it might keep hurting a bit for a while like my left shoulder a bit more than a year ago... Ramadan is coming and am excited about taraweeh mostly.. Fasting itself is a killer for me since i eat like every 2 and a half/3 to 3 and a half hours. SO i get to really shrink in Ramadan,, last Ramadan was better than the one before.. I think LAst ramadan what triggered a mess up was having to visit some family friends and have iftar with them.. it was af it was taboo not going, and i didnt want to as there was a bit of mixing and all, I left early anyway.

of course if i dont eat properly on one day you cant make it up the other,, and in ramadan i eat in a very rigid strict manner of food choice,, I dont eat meat period on iftar only rice or pasta with chicken or fish.. meat can come later in the day and suhoor EGGS is a must... and I work out always after taraweeh.

From Info I learned about nutrition, Potassium is important for hydration, so in ramadan make sure you get plenty of it, milk is good for that and so as dates, so subhan Allah when its sunnah to break fast with things that speed up hydration.. faster than water alone. Bananas too have potassium, (eat with oats milk, cinnamon for suhoor along eggs for protein)

So...I will do the following training split.

Chest+ Biceps+ forearms,
Thighs+ Calfs + (Cardio + abs + Gluetts)
rest
Shoulders + triceps + Traps
rest
Back + Calfs + forearms + (Cardio + abs + Gluetts) (depending on how i feel i might skip cardio or do less time of it)
rest
start cycle again.

Warm up plus stretch and also more intensive stretching on rest days,, inshaAllah no less than 10 reps on the weights on my heaviest sets to give my joints a break.

need to add a few inches to my arms and calfs inshaAllah..

peace

Nostalgic

ahhh mayyn, I just orderd some fast food, Hardees! Use to eat sometimes in Kuwait, Me and me Best Pal Mish after a wild jaming session of blasted amplifiers with heavy distortion from cool pedals and stuff running around headbanging with low strapped guitars we would order some food and watch tv lol...
some days it was fatayer others some junk food, sometimes pizza duuude awsome days.

that was like every wednesday , Id go to his place or he comes over, we eat and jammmmmm then go out "GIZZ" just look good and walk around, and occasionaly bump into some cute chickz, we d also go to this muscial shop "Wataniya" in Salmiya highstreet, and rock on the guitar there,, and get a crowd around us, and all the younger teens beg their parrents to buy em a guitar lol.. and the parrents say its coz we play good not coz the guitar is awsome :P.. I remember this Philipino dude who worked there William, he would be happy to show us tunes and cliffs but once we got really good (actually better than him) to the point of grapping attention away from him he gets pissed off and like claims the guitar is busted or the amplifier is I dunno what ... we also one day met some dudes who were like shocked that we didnt know them lol, some Bahraini brothers who who had a khaleeji band. me and mish thought they were a bit loose in the head.

me and mish would usually start off togther then we d meet other folks,, oh yeah Sheeha lol :S
Sheesha was a big thing among us, but me and mish later on stopped coz its bad for us. on one time we had this African American friend of ours who insisted on smoking it after it was done so he was just smoking the coal, and you know sterotyoing African Americans :P he was somking it as if it was weed with the facial jestures and all ..later on he tripped whle crossing the road and i had to grab before a car was about to run over him lol

I remember two girls (Divas) from school coming out of fanar, just around the corner we stopped and we talked for a bit and then they walked away with about 50 geezies stalking them and giving us looks of ackonwledgment.
Stalking is a big part of teen culture in kuwait.. iguess folsk grow up to do nastier stuff.. alhamdullelah i never went that far!..

I rememberrrr! the night of our first performance we were so anxsious and nervous, but with the first cords the girls were screaming the top of their lungs off everyone went crazy so did the parrents (it was winter concert and formal but we were the only rock band, and we had to sit down and wear formal! it was Master of Puppets by Metallica)) so being the only rock band we were pretty much the main event :P ohh yeahh it was sooo awsome me and mish were like flying after the concert was done girls started pouring at us telling us how we were amazing and stuff lol :P

I remember we went to a resturant and this dude our friend made us run after we payed and wrote the comments in this card thing abou the service... he was like I wrote **** **** on it (cussing his mother) we were like YOU IDIOT.. the punk forgot the DVD he bought there.. wo he sneaked inside and got it,, and this syrian chef dude ran after him lool..

I remember we d crack up to Dave Chappelle, Ali G and some of the nonsense clips you can downlaod on Kazza and Napster... we worked out the same gym for a while, we camped too,, I still have a rock with me from those camping days..

me and Mish havent met up in like 3 years,, inshAAllah we meet up in decembre :D. its like I can call him up anytime or mail him and its like we still crack up jokes.. we miss each other like we havent talked in ages.. but we dont behave like it

food is here.. alhamdullelah!
peace

More Arab Diplomatic Initiatives

As I have pointed out in a previous (post) its seems there are more initiavtes in the same direction, now there are talks between the Syrian and Lebanese president after a few years of diplomatic tensions. Also more recently the Jordanian Government holds talks with Hamas officials! After a cut off and heavy tensions for 9 years!

Keep in mind that this is for regional strategic reasons not coz King Husain suddenly had a “change of heart” in the Israeli coming elections and what it yeilds may mess up the situation in West Bank which would bring turmoil in Jordan. However this will also ease tentions with the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan and the Islamist Social movment at large with th Jordanian government.

Anyway it seems interesting.. Jordan is trying to step up.. Now Egypt looks like a dork since they havent been able to bring all Palestinian factions and Israel to concrete deals.. Whatever Happens in Egypt in the next decade or is going to be a major propellant of what the Middle East will look like vis-à-vis Israel.

The U.S is too busy with Iraq that its “Allies” are more free to do what they want,, and more recently the Fiasco of Georgia is worrying them and dragging them into Cold War Politics.. Georgia ia a U.S Ally and currently Russian troops are only 40km away from Tbilisi the Georgia Capital..

International Affairs is getting Interesting !!

What Am I ?

I have Wings that dont make me fly.
I have Guns that dont shoot bullets.
I have Wheels that arent that fast.

What Am I ?

Such a tiny person.

BAD ME, i kept awake for longer that I should, way longer.
So I decided to stay all the way till fajr,
So I decided I ll just check out some blogs
I ve been checking out so many of them
I saw such amazing people subhan Allah..
all I did was click on Islam in my profile
to see other folks who wrote Islam in their interests.

all what I thought is that Politics is really
what this world boils to, but I guess there is more to the world than politics.
I even found a le7ya bro with intrest in muscles like myself:P
I found a strong sister who is physically challanged, whom embraced buddhism then later on Islam.
That sister really touched my heart.
I found a blog of a 67 year old journalist with scitzophrenia
Another Blog by a Canadian Turkish Revert sister who makes bread.
ahh too man to mention.

am sleepy I should hit the sack. i worked out today (or yesterday) after about 3 weeks layoff. i rested my wrist coz it got busted. then on the day i was suppose to hit the weights i got as cold! i lost weight fat and muscle.. but am quite surprised i still barely have a good measurment of my arms, even though i havent pumped em out yet..alhamdullelah..

ahh daayyyuunnngg maaynn i have like a lil wee less than a year and a half to finish off masters inshaAllah.
then inshaAllah PHD if everythng goes smooth.. I wonder how will I get married in all this! not to mention keep my muscles growing !

all I can say.. Allah al musta3aaaan, and whom ever has tawakul on Allah He is sufficient for him.

New Arab Diplomacy and G.C.C Political Autonomy

I read this PAPER by Marina Ottaway, pretty interesting, it jotted down many of my thoughts which appeared to me like a pattern but I didn’t think much about its significance I certainly knew that the U.S is being isolated and lost a lot of its soft power in the region. The U.S can a no longer manipulate the current regimes to do whatever it demands. There is some autonomy however that minimal autonomy is never used against high profile American interests.

From some of the themes in the Article; Leadership in the Middle East is shifting east away from Egypt (and Syria) towards the G.C.C (Gulf Cooperating Council) namely more towards Saudi and Qatar and to a lesser extent U.A.E and Kuwait.

However all of the efforts of G.C.C policies and initiatives are not planned or institutionalized, they are largely the efforts of individuals of the ruling royal families. These efforts are mostly pragmatic and against U.S Hawkish hardline policies of demoralizing, alienating and isolating its adversaries in the region. Namely Iran, Hezbolla and Hamas. These adversaries however all have direct links with Arab regimes.

King Abdullah of Saudi has always tried on many occasions to have Hamas and PA/Fatah (Palestinian Authority) to Negotiate Also the Same has been done by Egypt, and Egypt has made several broked Deals between Israel and Hamas. Also King Abdullah like all the other Emirs met with Ahmedi Nejad and proclaim that Iran is their neighbor not an enemy, they basically did not give any official positive to America’s desire for a Strike on Iran.

Yet Egypt is only forced to deal with the situation because of its borders with Gaza., which were broken causing security issues in Egypt. Otherwise Egypt and Jordan are basically enslaved to American monetary aid and also Egypt more specially has isolated itself from the Regional arena and went inwards to address problems over succession in the presidency.

Qatar has Brokered a Deal between all the factions in Lebanon saving the country off a political catastrophe and what could have been as later showed a civil war. Despite the U.S putting a grim face towards the talks, Hezbolla representatives, were on the negotiating tables in Qatar. Hezbolla is obviously a winner in all this (not mentioned in the paper) but if one pays close attention to the new constitution Hezvollah could be interpreted as having the same credentials as the Lebanese Army where the “Muqawama“ (Resistance aka Hezbollah) and the Lebeanse army have the right to free Lebanon from occupiers (aka Israel) . And a victory for Hezbolla is also a victory for Iran. Not to mention the situation in Iraq I will address this issue later in another post inshaAllah..

All of these many issues among others, are marking somewhat an autonomy of regional policy of the major Arab Regime players and more specifically the G.C.C states. The G.C.C no longer relies on the U.S to buy its oil and now there are other buyers who are equally thirst for oil. Also the Policies of America are just incosiderate and simply contribute to anything but stability.

One Could also draw from Clement M. Henry and Robert Springborg’s Book “ Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East” Which he classifies the G.C.C (and Morocco Which I don’t agree qualifies in their choice) as “Globalizing monarchies” and are the most likely to advance and respond to challenges of globalization in the Middle East.