Jesse Aizenstat's Blog, page 8

"I could almost smell the tear gas"

I just could not help but light up with a smile as people were buying copies of Surfing the Middle East last night at this wine bar party in Santa Barbara, CA. Oh, the tale they're about to walk into: SURFING. From Israel to Lebanon! I could almost smell the tear gas...

AOL's You've Got: Jesse Aizenstat

Special thanks to the AOL team for having me at their LA studio. This was too much fun!

Could the Syrian first lady defect?

I don't think so. I mean, could she?

Iraqi chemical weapons about to show up in Syria?

Oh, it's the ghost of Christmas past: Did Saddam move his chemical weapons into Syria just before the American invasion in 2003? If so, are we about to see them as the As'ad regime falls apart?

We know Saddam's Iraq had 'em. Remember the gassing of Kurds after the First Gulf War that killed over 300,000 people? Terrible. So where did they all go? The weapons, that is. The Americans never found them, and Saddam hated the Iranians. I mean, where else would they go? Russia?

Here is an old article I found while researching the Syrian chemical program, that started from the Egyptians in 1973. It's by Melanie Phillips in the British Mail Online. Her conclusions are chilling.

Next question: If the Americans and Israelis feel that As'ad is losing his grip on the stockpiles, will they "take them out" or secure them by force? Or, maybe the US will try and convince Turkey to do it because A) they are geographically close and have a huge army, and B) because they'd get to do a whole operation against Kurdish PKK rebels in Syria (who As'ad is now supporting as a terrorist proxy).

Frankly, nobody knows how this will play out. All we can do is stand by . . . and watch:

Melanie Phillips in the British Mail Online:

In October 2003, the US intelligence community publicly pointed for the first time to transfers of WMD from Iraq to Syria. The Director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, James Clapper, said it linked the disappearance of Iraqi WMD with the huge number of Iraqi trucks entering Syria before and during the US invasion; based on satellite imagery, it assessed that these trucks contained missiles and WMD components. Shipments to Syria were supervised by Saddam’s most loyal intelligence agents. Once the shipments were made, these agents would leave and the regular border guards resumed their posts.

Moreover, captured Iraqi documents record that the Russian ‘spetsnaz’ moved many of Saddam’s weapons and related goods, including chemicals used to make chemical weapons plus missile components and MIG jet parts, out of Iraq and into Syria in the weeks before the 2003 invasion.

In 2004 Nizar Najoef, a Syrian journalist who defected from Syria to Europe, claimed he had received information from contacts in Syrian intelligence that: Tunnels dug under al Baida near Hama in northern Syria were an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long range missiles were stored there; Vital parts of Iraq’s WMD were stored in the village of Tal Snan, north of Salamija where there was a big Syrian air force camp; Iraqi WMD was also stored in the city of Sjinsjar on Syria’s border with Lebanon.
Shoham concluded:

‘Apparently, then, the prevailing perception of the “failure” to find Iraq’s CBW arsenal ought to be rethought...Strategically, Iraq’s enduring arsenal may affect Syria’s CBW capabilities, provided that the transfer did in fact take place...’

Might some of Basher al Assad’s chemical (and possibly biological) arsenal have Saddam Hussein’s name on it?

"It is raw, and adventurous without embellishment . . ."

I was working on various book marketing things today when I opened my Amazon page to find that some wonderful soul--code name: CSB--wrote one of the best reviews I've ever read about my work.

Any author or artist can relate things people say or don't say about their stuff. This one really hit it home. So if you wanna follow CSB's advice, check out the eBook, hardcover or iPad app, all a click away on the right side of this blog post. With the eBook at only $2.99, you can't go wrong!

The Dictator's Daughter of Uzbekistan

Everyone loves a good piece of strange entertainment. That's one reason to even follow the news. The sheer weirdness of the story I'm about to share with you is not only amusing, but reflective of a bigger picture that has emerged in the Central Asian region and post Soviet states. 

Since the break up of the Soviet Union, newly independent countries in Eastern Europe, the Caucuses, and the Stan's have gone through there own traumatic history. In many of these countries, crazy dictators have seized power, running the place like gangsters, making Assad's Syria look like a liberal democracy. Okay, that might be taking it a bit far. But the point still stands: from Turkmenbassy's Stalinist personality cult in Turkmenistan, to everything else that cannot be crammed into this sentence, there is one more that must not be overlooked. The Dictator's Daughter: Uzbekistan's Gulnara Karimova. The daughter of President Islam Karimov.

Sarah Kendzior over at Registan just wrote an epic profile piece on Gulnara, titled Why Dictator's Daughters Still Can't Have It All. 

So beyond having to check it out for yourself, I'd like to offer one bit of pondering as to why Gulnara has lived a life where she has gotten everything she's ever wanted . . . except one thing: Western, Kim Kardashian-style fame. I think it's because this sort of status is one of the only things money can't buy. (Which might be saying something even more interesting about Kim Kardashian . . . and that she has some talent in being interesting enough for people to follow. Duh, right?)

It's so ironic: the dictator's daughter could have it all. But now she's going after a populous approval and a love of the crowd that can only be won with merit and grit. To that I say: read Sarah Kendzior's piece that fully gets into the subject.

Reviewing, liking, and choosing which comment is the most helpful

In the old days, we looked to big TV networks and magazines to figure out what we wanted to read. Now, it's a hybrid: a mixture between the big-old players & consumers.

As you've been seeing, Surfing the Middle East has been getting a flurry of big media attention. But it's not out of the gate yet. I need your help reviewing, liking, and choosing which comment is the most helpful on my Amazon page. Then together we can watch Surfing the Middle East climb into the Amazon Top 100!

Please take a moment and make a few clicks. It helps out an author.

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