Archive for December 3, 2005
Grand (not really) Ayatollah Sistani lied. After last elections, Sistani (seen above while resting uncomfortably in his hospital bed in London last year) said that he would not endorse any list. Well, he lied. Yesterday, he issued an edict in which he urged his adherents to follow three guidelines: 1) that they vote in the [...]
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
“Decline in Support for War Worries GOP:In Georgia, Even Republican Voters Are Voicing Unhappiness With Iraq Involvement”
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
“Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake”
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
By the way, I have not checked. Have US troops captured or killed yet another senior aide to Zarqawi yesterday?
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
“CIA agents have broken ranks to reveal the ‘cruel and inhuman’ interrogation techniques they are ordered to use at secret prisons around the world, including freezing and near-drowning.”
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
This is Zionism: Not even a dim-light unto the Nations. “A 14-year-old Palestinian who was hospitalized in Israel after being shot in the leg by Israel Defense Forces soldiers has been held in arm and leg restraints since Friday, even though he is guarded 24 hours a day by two Military Police officers.”
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
When Israeli media talk about Arab countries’ missiles, they call them missiles. Only Israeli missiles are referred to as “anti-missile SYSTEMS.”
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
I have been critical of Al-Arabiyya TV for running US (not pro-US, US) propaganda. Recently, I really have observed that the channel has been on occasion running Israeli propaganda, and I don’t think that it is accidental. Just today, it ran a special on Israeli spy `Azzam `Azzam. And the piece was so badly done, [...]
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
The only people who should be surprised about Peres joining Sharon’s party should be American liberals. The rest of the world has been quite aware of the history of this man, whose electoral campaign in 1996 was launched with the dead bodies of the Qana shelter used as TV props. And he lost anyway.
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Back off. Torture is taking place. “US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will inflame the transatlantic row over America’s alleged torture of terror suspects in secret jails by telling Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and other European officials to ‘back off’.”
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Please spare me the piety of Saddam. Do you know that wherever Saddam goes (not far, of course, between his cell and the court) he clutches a copy of the Qur’an. Like Noriega, he must have discovered God in jail.
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Legacy of the Syrian mukhabarat in Lebanon. Is this it? Is this the legacy of the Syrian mukhabarat in Lebanon? Two mass graves were found yards from the headquarters of the Syrian intelligence apparatus in Lebanon during its long years of domination. What images and what symbolism. But was that surprising? And who is guilty [...]
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Syrian thinker Tayyib Tizini offers his criticisms of the Damascus Declaration in an interview with Al-Mustaqbal. He, as a staunch secularist, disagrees with the marriage between politics and Islam posited in that declaration, and fears Kurdish separatism. He also strongly disagrees with the absence of references to the Palestine question in the declaration. Tizini signed [...]
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Another insane and hugely costly project in Dubai.
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Al-Jazeera has added qualifications and disclaimers to its reporting in the Middle East in order to appease the US. Yesterday, AlJazeera reported on (but did not air) the video showing Western hostages in the Iraq attacking US war and occupation. The anchorperson added that this could have been made under duress, and the true feelings [...]
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
You have to read this long interview with Walid Jumblat published in Ash-Shira` magazine. This magazine, and its editor Hasan Sabra, has a checkered past. He was a leader of the thuggish Sunni militia, Arab Socialist Union, during the civil war. Its only claim to fame is that it was a vehicle of Libyan intelligence [...]
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
The crackpot Lebanonese presidential candidate. You had to see the crackpot Lebanonese presidential candidate, Shibli Al-Mallat, on Al-Arabiyya TV. The host (one of the best interviewers on that channel, Hasan Mu`awwad) grilled him and pointed out the absurdity of his launching his campaign for the presidency in Lebanon from…the US, and the fact that he [...]
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
“The U.S. general who used to head the National Security Agency says the only way to stabilize the Middle East is to leave Iraq.”
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Mystery, undated. Odilon Redon.
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad
Now try to figure this out please: “UAE outlines vote mechanism”. But this is clear from the ruler’s statement. Some citizens will be allowed to vote in an indirect way for half of the members of councils that have no powers whatsoever. OK. I have to cut a cherry tree now.
Posted on December 3, 2005 by As'ad